


Myth Turned Reality

by AndreaLyn



Series: Myth Turned Reality [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Everyone lives, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty years after reclaiming Erebor, a new prophecy comes to light: old spirits will awaken in the dwarves of Erebor and alphas, betas, and omegas will return to the dwarven realm. Thorin works to hold Erebor together while Fili and Kili adjust to the world changing in seemingly impossible ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The history books concerning Erebor are lengthy and storied. They stretch back many years and tell of wild things, but their strangeness did not diminish from them being true. What happened once would happen again, but stories (even ones from history) are often lost when other, more pressing matters, come to light.

History fell behind the more important matter of rebuilding a kingdom, in this case.

Thirty years ago, the lost kingdom of Erebor had been retaken.

Songs and tales immortalized what men and dwarves and elves did when banded together with the eagles to fight against darker powers. The line of Durin had nearly been cleaved, but luck and a kinship with several elf healers had pulled Fili and Thorin away from near death, though Kili took some time longer to heal with the multiple wounds he had been dealt.

Still, thirty years gave everyone a chance to recover.

Kili took it upon himself to lead the delegations to Mirkwood, for reasons Fili had always suspected revolved around Tauriel, but of late he was quick to deny that they were anything but friends. He had explained it the last time they were in the armory, sorting through the new shipments of weapons. “She is starlight, Fili,” he said, yet dazed by such a cool beauty. “But the stars are very far away, you know, and I cannot touch them. You cannot feel them as you can the sun,” he said, his gaze slipping to the golden locks of Fili’s hair. “I owe her a great debt. I owe her my life many times over, for she saved you as well. She remains lovely though, and I will always be her _mellon_.”

Still, Kili was often gone to the woodland realm and this marked great spans of time in which they were separated. Fili did wish that Kili were around more often, for maybe if he were, he would be able to confide as to whether he, too, noticed that something odd was befalling Erebor.

Now that their people were settled and production had begun again in order to share the wealth with the towns surrounding them, the friends and family Fili held dearest to him began to act differently. It was not noticed so easily, but to Fili’s keen eye, he did see it. Tempers flared and he would often have to break fights in the main hall between two dwarves. His mother insisted it was complacency.

Fili had been on hand to break up many fights in the halls of Erebor, only barely succeeding in splitting dwarves apart from each other who were growling and baring their teeth as though they were animals. It always seemed to be over petty instances fueled on by drink. Fili remained in disbelief that after fighting so hard to reclaim their homeland, they could be diminished to such petty arguments.

“We have no enemy to fight,” she had said while kneading bread for the night’s feast. “And so we turn to each other and let sharp words fly.”

Fili was not so sure this was all there was to it. After all, even dwarves he had known for some time in Ered Luin were not acting as they once had. He felt lost at sea where he could not recognize a single other face.

Fili counted himself pleased, then, to find solace in familiarity. 

Ori seemed unaffected and Fili took to spending more time with his young friend as a result. “Dori has been acting very strange, even for him,” Ori confessed. “He spends his days more subservient than usual. I’m going to drown in chamomile tea and red wine each dinner,” he said. “And Nori! He’s become angry enough that he picks fights on a dime when otherwise he might have avoided them.”

“Thorin is much the same, but Uncle has always been a proud man,” Fili admitted. “Balin says that Dwalin has been locked away in his room, but that was before he took off citing a need to reference some old materials.”

Truthfully, it was these times that made Fili miss his brother most. They had always been inseparable, but duty now split a sea between them. Ori was a good friend, but Fili still felt he could not utterly honest with him the way he could with Kili.

He could not say that he, too, had been feeling strange as of late. There was no way to properly describe it for he could not place a finger on what, precisely, it was. All that he knew was that he felt odd and off and he accused it on Kili’s absence after so long.

They parted ways, he and Ori, and Fili made his way back to the royal chambers to see if Thorin or his mother required anything before he retired for the evening. He was still becoming accustomed to being a proper crown prince of Erebor and the heir to the throne and though he had studied these subjects his whole life, it seemed new rules appeared in all places without Fili even knowing they had existed.

Tonight, there was company. 

Fili could hear Balin’s voice long before he saw the dwarf and he sounded terribly grave. “It took some digging, but eventually I found it. We were lucky to survive the battle for the mountain and now, it seems, our victory has triggered this prophecy.”

 _Another prophecy?_ thought Fili. It seemed mad, but the first had been true enough. He crept closer, but did not enter the room yet. He stood in the shadows where the flickering candlelight would not give him away.

“It does explain your moods, Thorin,” Balin added. “Certainly Dwalin’s.”

“Enough,” Dwalin growled, putting Fili’s count of the people in the room up to four. “Tell them so we can work out what must happen next.”

“What must truly happen is that we fetch all the dwarves of Erebor back home as quickly as possible,” Balin said with some urgency. “Thirty years has passed and that’s quite a long time to go without preparing for what’s been lurking within all this time. Some of us ought to be fine, but there are others who should be locked away until the first cycle passes.”

“Cycle?” Dis asked. “Balin, what do you speak of?”

“Best let the prophecy speak it.”

_When the king returns to his mountain crown,_  
and all his enemies have been struck down,  
The true nature that waits within,  
shall seize the heart of every kin. 

_Blood and flesh given over to desire,_  
And all calm thoughts set afire.  
The spirits of Erebor’s dwarves unleashed,  
But wary must they be of such a beast. 

Fili did not understand what Balin had recited, but lingered in the hopes that one of the older dwarves would explain. 

“You think the tales of old are true?” Thorin asked, after a long silence that swallowed the conversation whole. “You think our people are subject to this myth?”

“After what I’ve seen over the course of the last few months, I’m not entirely sure they’re such myths anymore, Thorin. Long ago, your ancestors claimed to bear the spirits of great beasts and cherished those with the spirit of the willing, yet proud other half to that beasts’ soul. There were others, of course, but tales rarely tell of what became known as the betas. I would not want such a curse on my blood that sends me to such extremes and I am happy to say that it seems as the prophecy comes to light, I am a beta,” Balin said, voice ringing with pride. “You, brother, and you, my king, cannot make the same claim.”

“The fits of anger, the possessive flights,” Thorin murmured. “You think it is signs that we are alpha beasts?”

“I cannot imagine it makes you omegas.”

Fili mouthed the word, finding it strange to even think, but nothing he had heard made any sense. He did not like the thought of a strange spirit awakening in the dwarves around him and held on tightly to the hope that perhaps he was like Balin, a beta. Unaffected, seemingly, by whatever grasped these alphas and omegas.

He followed that line of thought all the way through the halls of Erebor, out past the lake, and into the forests of Mirkwood.

“Kili,” he whispered, pushing away from the wall. 

He must find Kili and bring him home before anything might happen to him. If this prophecy affected all of Erebor’s people, then surely those of Durin’s line would be greatly affected and Kili was among the elves, now. They would not know how to handle such a thing. It was this thought that had him running for the armory to arm himself with swords and knives and axes covered in jewels. He could not let his brother remain out there alone while the world changed beneath their feet.

* * *

Fili, however, was too late.

* * *

Kili awoke on another beautiful day in Mirkwood, the sun struggling to burst past the sickness of the trees and finding some success. Birds sung, a hint of sweetness hung in the air, but only irritability chased at Kili. He had felt awry for days now, starting when the Lonely Mountain had left his sights. He felt terrible for it, but he had snapped at the friends he had made and been especially rude to Legolas. Still, he could not explain it and did not wish to be near anyone else.

“You are sulking,” Tauriel’s voice came to him. “Though sometimes I cannot tell for when you are at rest, you look cross with the world.” The corners of her lips turned upwards for the briefest of moments before they were at rest again.

Kili had removed himself from Thranduil’s great halls, not wanting his ill mood to cloud up the place. Instead, he had taken himself to the old gate where he had been shot, sitting perched and watching the waves beneath him. 

“I do not know what lurks in my blood, but ever since we lost sight of the Mountain, it has been most unhappy.” Kili felt skittish and twitchy, unable to sit still properly. “I have been wanting for something I cannot say.”

“As if you are missing something?” Tauriel suggested.

“Very much like that,” Kili agreed. “And I do not know what it is, but it makes me so very angry not knowing. Tauriel, what is happening to me?” he asked, frightened. She had a wealth of knowledge that time could bring, as all elves seemed to possess. If anyone would know what strange disease affected Kili, it would be her. “I have never felt anything like it before.”

“And you would not have, for it is something the world has not seen in the halls of dwarves in centuries,” Tauriel admitted, a hint of a smile upon her lips. “Your ancestors called them beasts, but they were not. There are three spirits that took hold of them. Alpha, Beta, and Omega. The fiercest, the steady bravest, and the backbone of a society. There is a prophecy that such a time will come again for the dwarves to bolster their place in Middle Earth.”

“How would that come to pass?” he asked warily, skipping a stone on the river.

“The Omegas are important for many reasons, but one of the most important to your ancestors was their ability to bear life as dwarrowdams could. The hard, long dwarven pregnancies were shared between the women and the men of your ancestors’ time. Anyone could create a lineage, provided they were an omega mated to an alpha. Many happy marriages were produced and omegas and betas both gave birth and created seven kingdoms. Do you not know your history, Kili?” she teased gently.

“Fili was always better with a history book than I,” he confessed. “And to us, those were merely myths. Stories you told your children to get them to sleep and dream of a golden age.”

“If what you are saying you feel is true, then perhaps you are living a myth, _mellon_. Perhaps you bear one of the ancient spirits? Perhaps you are the other half to someone’s soul and you are seeking them.”

Kili wrinkled his nose at the thought of everything in his body changing when he was already well past a hundred (perhaps not _well_ past, but a few years). He had just now begun to grow a beard that was more than a few hints of stubble here and there, flecks of white interspersing the darkness. This came from within, though, making it even stranger.

“You say it will happen to all the dwarves?” Suddenly, that part caught up with him. “Those who live in Erebor, they will experience an awakening as I am feeling?”

He stood in a hurry, rushing for his things that were kept in the great halls of Thranduil’s kingdom. His family could be affected by the same strange disease. Perhaps they would have answers or they knew nothing of what afflicted them.

Another thought, steady and true and constant, burned at Kili’s mind.

 _Fili_.

He doubled his speed, hurrying as quickly as he could as a renewed panic assaulted him at the thought of his brother falling prey to this strange disease. His brother, his lion of a brother who roared and faced all foes, would surely be a fierce alpha and subject to such a mood that Kili himself was in. He must find him and ensure he was safe.

He must return home.

“I am sorry, Tauriel!” he shouted as he hurried. “Please tell your King that his hospitality is much improved, as always! I will return when all is settled.” His strides were as long as he could make them, but his speed was impressive given his short stature. 

This was a matter most urgent and Kili could delay for no one.


	2. Chapter 2

“Dwalin, fetch Fili,” Thorin commanded when he rose to another day in which his body seemed pressed to give himself over to any willing omega. He had learned of these tales in his history lessons, but experiencing the near-rut of an alpha was beyond inconvenient. Never mind that he, as King, had a whole population coping with the same issues. It was madness. “And send letters to all dwarves travelling throughout Middle Earth to order them back to Erebor.”

As an afterthought, he caught Dwalin’s arm. “Thorin?” Dwalin asked, when Thorin paused, seemingly in thought about what he wanted to request next. 

“Send a letter to the Shire, as well,” he said. The last he had seen of their burglar, they had fought greatly, but the tension between them had begun to thaw with the passing back and forth of many letters and Thorin held out some hope that Bilbo could bring him out of this new fever as he had done with the gold sickness.

Dwalin nodded curtly, departing with short bursts of steps.

Thorin had other concerns to address. Chief among them was the imbalance of Erebor’s dwarves. While there were a great many betas among them who noticed nothing different in their daily lives, there was also a great number (nearly one-fourth) who were now alphas, but the omega population was not so numerous. Balin insisted that some awakenings would be delayed as most omegas did not present until in the vicinity as their alpha (so the tales said), but still, Thorin worried of the reported fights that had been breaking out.

When there were four alphas to every omega, there would not be peace.

It was a political headache that Thorin had never expected to encounter. It had lead to him taking his drink earlier and earlier in the day. Today, though it was only breakfast, saw him pouring a glass of rich red wine. 

“A bit early for this, isn’t it brother?” Dis remarked pointedly.

“It is necessary to dull the headache,” he said, every inch of him feeling well and truly strung. He had yet to have a proper heat, but the threat of it happening at any moment made Thorin wary to see to his public duties. It would not do to see the King Under the Mountain assaulting its’ walls to bring the edge off. “Count yourself lucky that you appear to be a beta,” he says.

“I do,” Dis assured. “I’ve come to speak to you about the boys. Shall I pour a second glass of wine for you to endure such a conversation?”

Thorin did not wait for her to embrace such a kindly act. He finished every ounce of what remained in his glass and topped it off again. “I’ve sent for Fili to explain what is happening. Mahal willing, he will be a beta and will not endure any of this. Kili, though...” Thorin shook his head. Kili had always been the wilder of the two; reckless with his heart and his hand and never one to let thoughts slow him. Thorin could not see Kili being exempt from the prophecy and Thorin could only hope the past thirty years had lent some maturity to Kili so that he would accept whatever change came to him with dignity.

Dis paced around the table, picking up the carafe of wine and setting it before her when she sat down across from Thorin.

“As always, you see the boys as they were when they were younglings,” Dis gently spoke. “Kili is not the same boy as before and nor is my eldest. War has changed them, age lending its’ hand.”

“Will I need more drink after hearing your thoughts?” Thorin asked.

“I fear you will,” Dis agreed.

“What, then? Both omegas?”

“Both alphas, I think,” Dis said. “The two of them have been sewn together since Kili was born and I cannot imagine them doing something without the other at their side. I worry that an omega will break them apart, but I also would feel great gladness knowing both of them would be able to foster a lineage whether with a beta or omega.”

She was right. Thorin did need the drink.

“Mahal help me, two alpha nephews,” he groaned. “Why must you bring me such nightmares when already I fear Erebor on the cusp of collapse over what burns in our blood?” 

“I told you to pour yourself a drink to soften the blow,” Dis retorted. “Count yourself glad that Frerin is not here else I am sure that I would be in a similar position.” Thorin exhaled, knowing that their brother would have challenged Thorin in such a way that perhaps whole sections of Erebor would no longer be left standing.

Thorin felt the pressure of his headache growing tenser and the red wine did little to aid him. There were unknown factors within his own family, a city on the brink of falling into madness, and an opportunity to once again become great and make up for the losses felt in Smaug’s invasion. It all seemed so very away, though.

He pinched the bridge between his nose and exhaled slowly, keeping that fierce animal inside him at bay. It felt as if any moment it would crest over and gain control and Thorin knew that every moment of frustration only increased such changes.

That moment seemed precariously close when Dwalin re-entered the throne room with a look of panic on his face.

“What now?” Thorin asked, grip on the crystal wine glass tighter than before.

“Fili’s gone,” he said, thrusting a piece of parchment closer. “He’s left a letter for you.”

Dis exchanged a knowing look with Thorin. “I told you impish recklessness lived not only in Kili’s heart,” she warned. Thorin ignored her, snatching the letter out of Dwalin’s hands. 

He waved Dwalin off with a hand. “Tell Balin to continue writing the missives to the other dwarves. You, assemble any dwarf from the quest who isn’t losing his mind to this blood-fever and find my nephew,” he growled, baring his teeth as the alpha within him begins to take control. The crystal glass was released and he turned his attention to the letter as Dwalin quickly departed, leaving Dis and Fili’s words with Thorin.

_Thorin,_

_Please accept my forgiveness, first. I did not mean to eavesdrop, but it is what I found myself doing last night when Balin explained all. I know about the alphas and the omegas and I wish to comfort you in saying that I feel nothing different. Perhaps I am a beta and this blood fever that has assaulted you will pass me by._

_However, I cannot leave Kili to an unknown fate. I must seek him out in Mirkwood and bring him home. I will ensure that we are both safe._

_Your nephew,_

_Fili_

Thorin breathed out relief, though his frustration remained boiling. It was enough to bring him away from the precipice of losing all control and snapping. “He is unharmed,” Thorin assured Dis, clasping her shoulder with shaking fingers. “He heard us speaking last night and thought to go find Kili, but I pray he thought past that and found kin to help. The roads still crawl with the enemy, even after their defeat.” He passed the letter to Dis so she could read his words.

“Beta,” Dis murmured, reading that part.

“It would be a kindness if he were,” Thorin confessed. “I feel only sorrow if either boy should experience what I am enduring, now.” 

“I will go with Dwalin,” she said, sweeping up her skirts. “Give me a moment to collect my travelling clothes and my axe. If anyone should get the opportunity to smack sense into the boy, it should be his own kin and you are in no state to travel. Besides,” she said, a coy smile upon her lips. “Dwalin needs looking after.”

“I do not need details, sister,” Thorin groaned. While he knew partial information about his sister’s occasional flirtations with Dwalin, he did not wish to see them presented before him. He caught her wrist before she could go too far. “Be careful, Dis.”

“I will be well protected,” she assured him. 

When she left, blessed silence filled the room. For a moment, Thorin basked in it, but soon the silence gave way to thinking about all the problems he had yet to solve to ensure Erebor would remain as great as it had always been. He pushed the wine aside and took to his scrolls and books to seek a solution. 

He could not fail; not after coming so far.

* * *

Blessed by the gift of a pony, Kili had been swift in travelling across the elven path out of Mirkwood and had arrived in Lake-town with no delay. His mind felt cloudy and worse than before, as if proximity to the Lonely Mountain was only making this disease worse. He could no longer plead ignorance. He knew something was affecting him -- _changing_ him. He knew he could not make it back to Erebor like this, no matter how much he yearned to see Fili safe.

It was lucky, then, that he had allies to turn to.

It felt a familiar thing to trudge up wooden steps in Lake-town, but this time it was no mere hut but a Master’s abode. The door was pulled open by Bain the Bowman, Kili’s dear friend and in that moment, he was immensely grateful to his presence.

“Kili,” Bain said, eyes flashing with worry. “Are you all right? You look ill?”

“I am fighting something, I’m afraid,” Kili confessed, wondering why it felt so terrible now. He clutched at his heart, as though it were trying in combination with his loins to rip him apart. “Will you allow me to rest for a moment?”

“Of course!” Bain said, pushing aside pillows and throws to make space for Kili on one of the chairs. Cautiously, he helped him along, hurrying to the kitchen when Kili was settled. “Funny you being here!” he called back over his shoulder. “Your brother stopped by briefly earlier.”

The next moment felt as though it was the definitive moment in which Kili could no longer accept that nothing had changed. Inhaling deeply, he took in the sharp scents that he now knew to be his brother’s in the throws and surrounding him. Strange how Kili felt _worse_ as he seemed to be getting closer to his brother. Kili let out an animalistic-like howl, the smell all around him, but not nearly strong enough.

“When?” he barked. “When did Fili leave?”

“Hours ago,” Bain said, growing more fearful by the look on his face. “Kili, what is it? What’s the matter with you?”

“I wish I knew,” Kili said, his vision blinded by a whiteness that blurred things and threatened to send him over a waterfall to be pulverized at the bottom by an unknown enemy. “I feel ill, down to my very bones, and I cannot fight it.” His mind whispered to him to take things that did not belong to him and he knew, instantly, that if he did not depart, then he would do something unforgivable to Bain. “Please, Bain. Leave. Leave me be and do not return until I am of sound mind.”

“But how will I...”

“Bain, _go_!” Kili warned, scared beyond measure and wishing that Fili were there to talk him through this new nightmare, as he had always done. 

And yet, while Fili’s scent lingered around him, his brother was too far away. 

Bain, however, listened. His father’s child in many ways (from looks to his bravery), he was a good bit less stubborn than the older man had been in his time. Kili let out a sound of relief when he heard the door bolted from the outside. Now, he was alone with the smell of Fili around him and rational thoughts fleeing his mind.

He became like an animal, only holding the most basic of thoughts in his mind.

 _Fee_ , it whispered as Kili jerked loose his belt and wound his hand into his trousers. Shame briefly curled around him, but Kili had no time for such things. He threw his head back and frenetically worked his hand over his cock, wishing that it were more satisfying than this. He wished for the tight warmth of another to surround his cock, wanted someone to come on him, wanted to be _inside_ and spill, he wanted to _take_ and breed and keep.

He wanted the _sun_ and wanted to possess it. 

His thoughts scattered as he found his climax, but it did not bring him back to a steady place. He still felt out of sorts, but now he did not worry about what he might do if left in a room with another warm body (willing or otherwise). He was also conscious enough of the guilt that plagued him and spent the next hour tidying up Bain’s home so that neither he, nor his wife or children, would notice that anything was awry.

When that task was done, Kili took his time to pry open one of the long-shut windows, leaving no trace that he had ever been there.

Now that he had Fili’s scent, he could turn to the more important task of finding his brother.

Kili departed Lake-town with more stealth than he had entered it, but his mind now more singularly focused than it had been before. Whatever strange happenings befell him had been accepted and he had more pressing matters concerning him; namely, finding Fili.


	3. Chapter 3

It took three days with the path that Fili had chosen, but eventually he reached Mirkwood and was greeted by Tauriel and her guard. He allowed a sweeping and elaborate bow, beaming at her when he came back to standing tall. 

“Fili, prince of Erebor,” Tauriel greeted him. “I did not expect to find you in these woods so soon.”

“And why is that?”

“Come,” Tauriel bade him. “Thranduil wishes to speak with you and I do not want to diminish his words. We are here to guide you through the forest.”

With his elven guides, the path did not take overly long and the strange magic of the forest did not invade Fili’s head as it often did when he walked these paths alone. Kili professed to be able to walk them without worry, but he had more practice than Fili did in such matters. He closed his eyes at the thought of Kili and tried to shake away his worry that his brother was in the middle of some mindless rut somewhere or, worse, succumbing to the rage of the beast within.

Or perhaps he was untouched, as Fili was.

Perhaps Kili was an omega; perhaps Fili had nothing to fear. 

As he approached Thranduil’s throne, he took careful measure in each step. While the imprisonment happened over thirty years ago, Fili still felt wary each time he came here. While he might not be half as stubborn as Thorin, he still held a grudge close to his heart when it was about something that mattered and Thranduil had locked away people very dear to him. He kept hold of a hesitation in his heart as he was led to the top of the winding way and left with only Thranduil and Tauriel in his company.

“These matters are private,” Thranduil explained, waving away the guards with a fluid flick of his fingers. Thranduil watched as the guards departed before he advanced upon Fili, a knowing glint in his eerily serene eyes. “I smell you, prince,” he said. 

Fili canted his head to look at Tauriel, but her head was bowed. She would not look at him and would not intervene. Strangely, his heart pounded in his chest and he puffed it up, not wanting to be _lesser_ in the presence of an elven king. Thorin would do no such thing and Fili’s whole dwarven life had been modeled upon his uncle.

“I assure you, I have bathed quite recently,” he quipped merrily. “Where is Kili? He came to visit with your delegates and trade.”

“He had much the same idea as you, but in reverse,” Thranduil said, inhaling deeply and giving a smug nod when he seemed to find what he was looking for. “I presume he’s made it to Esgaroth by now, if not already on his way to Dale’s outskirts. I do not speak of a foul stench when I speak of your smell, Fili. It is quite the opposite. It is a very alluring smell you put off, which I imagine means the prophecy has begun to come to light. How was Kili when he departed, Tauriel?”

“In very much of a mood, sire,” she replied, casting an apologetic look to Fili when she glanced up long enough to answer. “Heated.”

Fili felt his anger begin to burn. “What did you do to him?”

“We did nothing, young prince,” Thranduil replied, drawing out the name and chiding him in the same breath. “Just as we have done nothing to you. I brought you here to discuss what is happening to your people and how you must be very careful. Omegas can be a dangerous creature; beautiful, sought after, exotic, and _deadly_ ,” Thranduil warned. “And it will fall to you when Thorin is gone to ensure that they do not halt the progress of Erebor’s recovery. Gold flows through the towns and, more importantly, gems of silver and white come to me. Some, golden,” he says, fingers sliding through Fili’s hair (which shone brighter than ever with the time he spent in Dale helping them to rebuild).

Cautiously, carefully, Fili took a step backwards and regarded Thranduil warily. “I did not come here for advice.”

“You would be wise to accept it,” said Thranduil. “You smell of starlight, does he not, Tauriel?”

“He does, my lord,” she agreed, voice hoarse. 

“You will smell of what people desire most,” Thranduil said, catching Fili’s gaze and not unlatching it, keeping hold of it tightly. “ _Omega_ ,” he breathed out. “I smell it all over you, but you don’t even know it yourself. The first heat is still coming for you and it will claim you, do not doubt that.” Fili’s heart raced onwards, double time, and he did not want to believe what he was hearing, but feared it so. “You must return home, young dwarf, but it would be perilous to go on your own. Tauriel will accompany you.”

“I will not have her leave her homeland when I can protect myself,” Fili raged.

“Fili,” Tauriel spoke gently. “I do not mind. I would like to visit Erebor for I have not seen it in nearly ten years and Kili has told me much of its improvements. Please,” she entreated, the word gentle enough that it wasn’t an order, but strong that Fili was aware she would not let him depart alone, whether he liked it or not.

He was still awash with the thought of being an omega and how he didn’t know anything at all about it, save for what Thranduil had now told him.

He consented to Tauriel’s guard with a nod of his head and they were nearly departed when something came to his mind. “Thranduil,” he called back, voice echoing in the grand halls. “What would you have me do in Erebor?”

“Simple,” he replied. “Keep it from collapse.”

On their way out, Fili exchanged an eyeroll with Tauriel. “Simple, he says,” he huffed out. 

She smiled, but briefly, before she was serious once more. “Come,” she quietly encouraged. “We will need to take a longer route to ensure you are safe. With every passing moment, I fear you grow closer to a heat and all sense will be lost to you. I would not like for that to happen outside of a safe place, surrounded by family. Do not worry, master dwarf. I will make sure you are safe.”

“You always have when it comes to the line of Durin,” Fili said, assured of his protection.

* * *

“You want me to do what?” Bofur echoed, blinking in disbelief as he stared at the letter Balin held out for him. “Never you mind that the roads are filled with brigands and thieves, but if you haven’t noticed, the entire kingdom appears to be going mad!”

“All the better reason to escape it, laddie,” Balin advised, holding the letter out anew. “Thorin thought you the best emissary.”

“You mean he thinks Bilbo might not actually slam the door in my face when I reach the Shire?” Still, Bofur wouldn’t mind seeing Bilbo again and the Shire held promises of food, drink, and simplicity when it came to life that was sorely lacking from Erebor at this moment. Everyone seemed to be going out of their minds and Thorin sealing himself away wasn’t doing much to help keep everyone calm.

On the other hand, he didn’t fancy going it alone. 

“And who might be accompanying me?”

“Nori will take the roads with you, along with Gloin. Dwalin was supposed to join you, but he is involved in ... more pressing matters.”

Bofur smirked knowingly. “You don’t have to be shy about it. Everyone knows Fili took off in search of his brother. I’ll say one thing for the dwarves of Erebor; not many of them know how to keep their mouths shut. Do you think he’s okay?”

“Who, Fili?” Balin waved away the concern. “Yes, I’m sure he’s fine. Thorin says he overheard something he wasn’t supposed to hear and panicked. Say what you will about him being the more sensible of the two, but he still has his moments. Well? Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Will you take the letter to Bilbo?”

“Of course, I’d never say no to a visit with him,” Bofur said cheerfully, grasping his hat and poking his head further into the small halls that now served as Erebor’s toy shop. “Bifur! Bombur! I’m going away for a while, you two behave and don’t do anything rash while I’m not here!”

He received two grunts in reply. 

Bofur smiled warmly. “It’s always so nice to have family that cares so deeply, isn’t it?” he dryly remarked. “I expect Thorin will make sure we’ll well-provisioned for the journey?”

“You’ll have food and weapons to spare, as well as escorts of men and elves until Rivendell,” Balin agreed. “You can thank _me_ for that diplomacy. When you reach the borders of the Shire, remember to keep your mission quiet. This is a private matter belonging only to the dwarves. It is not for the world of men and hobbits to interfere. The elves,” Balin said ruefully, “we have never been able to stop from knowing.”

Bofur glanced at the letter in his hand and weighed what he wanted to ask next. He knew that he shouldn’t need to ask for any gold after receiving one-fourteenth of the treasure (well, what remained after it was split between the men and the elves), but after putting most of the money into starting the business, a coin or two helped here and there.

“I don’t suppose there’d be any other payment for this little journey?”

Balin shook his head, but lifted a small satchel of coins before placing it in Bofur’s hands. “For all three of you,” he warned. “Not that Nori goes without any money and Gloin doesn’t hoard his treasure like a very auburn dragon. Rest assured a feast will be had when you return with the honoured guest.”

Bofur took the coins with gladness, even more pleased to hear there would be a feast waiting for them when they returned. “I’ll round up the boys,” he assured, grasping his best travelling hat and securing it on his head. “We’ll have Bilbo back before you can sneeze.”

“Mind yourselves on the road,” warned Balin. “And don’t forget that Nori and Gloin may be different dwarves than the ones you previously knew.”

“Aren’t we all, after the quest?”

“I suppose, yes, we are,” Balin agreed.

* * *

Over two days had passed in search of a prince with no trace.

Dwalin’s temper had been running on high for weeks, now, but the frustration of not finding one single dwarf on a short run was beginning to compete with the existing cloud in his mind. Alpha blood in his veins wanted him to find and fuck something and with every passing hour of failure, Dwalin was losing his patience to resist. 

“Sir!” called one of the guards. “Tracks.”

Dwalin stormed over, crouching to inspect the boot marks and found that they were, indeed, a pair of the boots the princeling wore. It was lucky, too, for Dwalin was going to want something to help strangle Fili when he found him and the laces would do just the trick. Mirkwood loomed before them and Dwalin didn’t fancy venturing inside if they didn’t have to.

“Out you come, Fili!” Dwalin let his voice soar on the wind, booming out and sending birds scattering from off their branches. “This has gone on long enough!”

Before them, the leaves on the trees trembled and shook. Dwalin kept one hand on a weapon on the off-chance this was an ambush, but his patience (what little was left of it) paid off when the first glimpse of a prince’s clothes was sighted coming out of the forest. The trouble, of course, was that it was the _wrong_ prince.

“Kili,” Dwalin growled.

“Where’s Fili?” Kili demanded.

He looked terrible. His hair was disheveled and his face a mess. Patches of hair had mingled with twigs and hay, bits of Lake-town’s grime stuck to his fingers, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained with all manner of inappropriate things. If Thorin saw him now, they’d have Kili’s head on a platter. “Come on,” Dwalin cuffed him upside the head. “He came looking for _you_ and Thorin sent us after _him_.”

“You will not find him in our woods,” came a voice from the borders of Mirkwood.

There, an elf guard stood tall. 

“What do you mean?” Kili asked, voice shaky. 

“Tauriel accompanies Prince Fili back to Erebor,” the guard said. “They take the long road to ensure his safety.” 

The rest of the party soon caught up to where Kili stood, Dis leading the charge. She fell to a stop the moment she saw him, mouthing an old curse when it was instantly clear by the look of him that he could not count himself untouched by this madness. 

Kili pushed at Dwalin, as if a challenge that he was not ready for in his youth. Dwalin turned on him, drawing his weapon and ignoring all sensible thought telling him that doing this in front of witnesses and Kili’s mother was a poor idea. Blindly, he reached out, fingers strangling Kili’s neck and lifting him off the ground. “Do not challenge me, whelp,” Dwalin warned.

“Enough!” Dis shouted. “Put him down, Dwalin,” she commanded, prying them apart and standing between Kili and Dwalin. “If you cannot control yourself until you find an omega to sate your rage, then go. I will accompany Kili back to Erebor with the rest of the guard.” Accusation burned in her eyes and Dwalin did not think he imagined the disappointment.

Whether it was for the assault on her son or the fact that she could no longer calm Dwalin’s moods, he could not say. Deep breath followed deep breath and he looked to her as though a child might look to his sweetheart.

“Dis,” he pleaded quietly, when the blinding rage had subsided.

“No,” she said, one hand clutching Kili’s shoulder to keep him from lunging. “Not now,” she added gently, giving him a disappointed look as Kili turned into her embrace as though he were little more than a dwarfling seeking some sort of comfort. “Help me accompany Kili back to Erebor and then,” she said, a heavy look in her eyes as she regarded Dwalin, “ _then_ , we will speak.”

It was words of warning, Dwalin knew that much. He swallowed his pride and his stubbornness and nodded his head, watching the way Dis gently turned Kili into her touch with a hand on each of his bearded cheeks.

“Kili, are you well?”

The young (perhaps not anymore) prince shook his head. There were clear tracks on his cheeks, as though tears had burned a path through the grime. “I do not like what burns in my blood,” he confessed. “I sullied Bain’s home, I am changed, I’m a monster, mother.” He shook his head. “And I can’t stop thinking about Fili, no matter how hard I try. I think of Erebor and our family’s safety, but it brings me back to him.” He swallowed, hard, and Dwalin exchanged a look with Dis over the boy’s head.

He suspected what that meant.

None of it would be confirmed until they found Fili, though.

“You are my son,” Dis assured, soothing Kili with a soft tune that Thorin had oft sung when they were lads. “And you are no monster. Whatever happens within you, to you, it does not change the bright young prince you are. Come, Kili, let us return you to your brother and perhaps Fili will calm your heart.”

“Or light it on fire,” Dwalin muttered to himself.

What if they were bringing back the spark that would light Erebor on fire with its flames? Dwalin rounded up the rest of the search party and the ponies and began to follow after Dis, hoping against hope that they would not be lost to this madness.


	4. Chapter 4

The journey back to Erebor felt marked by a perilous edge just outside of Fili’s vision. The truth was that he did not feel much different at all, though perhaps more willing and calm. Thranduil’s words echoed in his mind, though, and he feared what would happen if he slipped over the precipice into what waited beneath. 

Behind him and Tauriel, several elves guarded their path as they wound their way through Dale. “Do you remember when this happened last?” Fili asked, for she would have been alive and perhaps with her quest for things outside the barriers of the woodland realm, she might have met with a dwarf or two plagued (or blessed) with such new spirits.

She inclined her head towards him from her stallion. “Only but a little. In that time, Thranduil was not so shut in and occupied with his own borders. While trade was encouraged, we were advised not to spend too much time with the dwarves. When I was younger, I thought perhaps their spirits were contagious,” she said, smiling privately. “Silly, perhaps, but I believed it with all my heart and I did fear being an omega most of all,” she added apologetically.

“Why?”

“Because you are another’s half. I never wanted to be so diminished as to only be a half.”

“I won’t be,” Fili insisted stubbornly. “I have lived my life fighting against the prejudice of men and the disrespect of the dwarves of the other kingdoms. I would not let my blood betray me simply because of a prophecy.”

“Perhaps you should have a talisman, as well.”

“Hm?”

“Kili’s is to remind him not to be so reckless so he might return home. I believe yours would remind you that your strength need not prevent you from happiness.”

Fili gave a soft harrumph. “Mother gave him that stone with blind hope. The idiot thought of it as a toy.” Still, he had no need of a talisman because he had always looked to Kili to ground him. Kili would bring him home with great safety. For a moment, Fili felt himself drift, leaning forward in the saddle of the pony as something strong took hold of him and bade a low moan from the deepest recesses of his chest.

When he came to, he glanced to Tauriel with alarm to see if she had heard.

She looked as though she were trying to fight a soft smile of pity mingled with amusement.

“What?” Fili asked.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Perhaps a stray thought that he would do well to have someone grounded. He and I are very alike, you know,” she said. “We spent many nights gazing at the stars and wishing that we were somewhere else. When he asked that question, so many years ago, I thought ‘of course, there is no doubt’, but how do you love someone when they are like the stars and very far away from you at all times? When they bask in the sunlight?” she wondered. “You smell of starlight to me, Fili, but it makes me want to explore the wilds and reach the ends of the earth,” she breathed out reverently. “And yet, I still wonder what you will smell of to him?”

Fili felt his cheeks redden with the sort of humiliation and shame that he hadn’t experienced since he was a young dwarf growing into his height and his hair.

He bowed his head forward and tried to ignore the part of his soul that was calling out through the wilds as though if it screamed loudly enough, it would locate Kili for him. He lifted his chin proudly and watched as the Lonely Mountain rose into view before him, as beautiful and wondrous as ever. Smoke poured from chambers and the smell of molten gold and other precious gems could be scented on the horizon.

Home was ahead. The wild behind, but Fili felt as if the wild had somehow made a space for itself in his heart and until he could find himself at peace with being an omega, he would not feel safe.

They reached the side gates when Tauriel dismounted her horse, extending a hand to Fili. “The guards have gone ahead to ensure the King knows of your return and has warned him to prepare a room.”

Panic gripped Fili tightly. “You have not sent word of what I am..?”

“No,” Tauriel assured. “However, Fili, word is not required. He will take one look at you, one long moment in your presence, and he will know,” she warned. “It would be wise if you did not see your uncle until the spark within you is calmed.”

He weighed this thought for a long moment. It went against all that he believed. Thorin was a comfort to him and he was both King and Uncle. He would know what to do. Yet, Balin’s words from the other night still echoed in his mind. If Thorin was an alpha and Fili an omega, terrible things could happen and Fili was not even prepared to cope with knowing what he was. He did not think he would fare well if Thorin attacked him, devoid of all sense.

Fili did not want to harm his uncle, but to protect himself, he would draw blood.

“You speak sense, my lady,” Fili agreed, though he still felt conflicted. “Perhaps you would like to see the great halls?” he suggested, rather than asking if she would escort him while he yet feared what might happen if left alone.

She inclined her head in agreement. “I would greatly enjoy such a tour, my Prince.”

He held out his arm to her, leading her on after she took it. He hesitated when they reached the great door before them. From inside, the bustle of everyday life could be heard, interjected by sharp shouts and the clanging of the forges. Life had returned to Erebor, but with it came a steadily increasing population and now Fili felt fear that they would smell and see him for what he now was.

“Fili,” whispered Tauriel.

“Yes?”

“Let none of them give you pause.”

He took solace and strength in the words, leading her inwards with strong steps. Each one bristled the weapons he wore on him, giving him a firm reminder that even if a wayward dwarf were to attempt something with him, his knives would stop before those thoughts could go too far and Tauriel’s arrow would be a fierce reprimand.

Still, Fili thought it best to be cautious. He took long, winding stairs until they reached the royal halls of Erebor. It still felt strange to be in such luxurious and sumptuous quarters after living so simply for so much of his life. Soon, they had reached his room and the only thing Fili wanted was to draw himself in behind its’ doors and remain safe.

“You should continue on,” Fili said, gesturing down the hall. “The craftsmen have put together a beautiful jewel to commemorate the elves’ aid in the Battle of the Five Armies and Thorin has just installed it in the King’s throne. It gleams of starlight. Kili’s idea,” he admitted, after a moment.

“I will be sure to pay my respects.”

She took a graceful striding step backwards and bowed low to him.

“Fili,” she said, nearly out of his sight before she spoke his name (but did not turn around).

“Yes, lady?”

“Be careful with him,” she warned. 

“With who?”

“You know of whom I speak,” she chided, finally looking over her shoulder. “Be good to him and remind him to be better to you.” With those last words of advice, she swept out of his vision and left Fili by himself for the first time since Thranduil had leveled that single accusatory word at him.

_Omega_.

Fili didn’t know what to do with it. He breathed out a heavy sigh of burden and latched the doors shut behind him, eyeing the space before him as he took a moment to let everything sink in.

It did not take very long for him to know precisely what he wanted. If he smelled of people’s desires, then he would try to scrub every inch of it off. 

Yes, a bath was exactly what he needed.

* * *

“Kili,” Dis called, when the Lonely Mountain stretched above them. Their boat had departed Esgaroth an hour ago and the final leg of their journey was before them. “Come, speak to your mother for a moment.” 

It was not a question, Kili could tell. He glanced up from where he was sharpening one of his knives (one that Fili had given him, because even now he needed some tenuous connection to Fili) and made his way across the boat to sit at his mother’s boot-clad feet. 

He huffed his way over, making it clear that he was none too pleased with being reprimanded like he was a child. Never mind that he’d been acting terrible while in Bain’s hospitality or the fact that he had nearly killed an elven guard who wouldn’t tell him where Fili was. This madness was clouding his mind and he would do anything to rid himself of it.

Dis ran her fingers through Kili’s tangled hair. “A hundred and eight years of age and still, you cannot wear your hair in a becoming fashion,” she chided.

“It wasn’t as if anyone cared before.”

“You weren’t under everyone’s observation before,” she said, a potent warning about the fact that everyone watched him. “What fills your mind, Kili?”

“There is a great haze and the only clarity that comes is when I sleep. Even then, there are dreams,” he confessed. “And when I think of what waits in Erebor, I fight with myself not to kill every other alpha on this boat to conquer their challenge.”

“No one has challenged you, Kili,” Dis said.

“I cannot let them have Fili.”

“Your brother may be an alpha as well, Kili,” Dis warned. Kili knew that she was trying to subdue his hope, but there was something in the way of Fili’s scent that made Kili confident that he was going home to his other half. “And if not an alpha, most likely a beta. Do not pin your hopes thinking he will be an omega. Do not challenge others on a belief.”

“He is mine,” Kili swore, the words guttural. He repeated them in Khuzdul, as passionate as he had ever heard them. “He will always be mine.”

That was met with a smack at the side of his head.

“Ow! Mother!” Kili whined, brought out of his sudden possessive fit.

“I will not have you talk about my son like a possession.”

“I mean to say that it doesn’t matter if he’s a beta or an alpha,” Kili retorted wildly, not liking that Dis didn’t understand what he was saying. “I am saying that it will not matter,” he said, raising his voice slightly so that all around him would hear. “Beta, he is mine. Alpha, he is _mine_ ,” Kili growled. “Whatever strange madness plays in my mind and in my blood, it doesn’t matter. Fili is mine.”

Dis sighed wearily. “Yes,” she agreed, though did not seem well pleased by it. “Unfortunately, I do believe you are right. He has been yours since you first smiled at him. He was yours when his heart cracked when he thought you might move to the Mirkwood with Tauriel. He is so much yours that he fled Erebor to find you without thought or care. My idiot boys,” she said.

“We always come home to you, though,” Kili said.

“Small mercies.”

They rode the last of the way to Erebor in silence, but Kili’s mind was buzzing with an energy that he had felt before, in Lake-town, when the mere smell of Fili from hours past had caught up with him. For the first time, he was grateful for Dwalin and his bruisers’ proximity. 

“Dwalin,” Kili called over, grasping the rope to haul him to his feet, feeling the urgent need to secure a promise before they got too close. “I need you to do something for me.”

Dwalin grunted, still none too pleased about the way Kili put him on edge, it seemed.

“If I begin to lose myself or all sense...” Kili glanced fearfully at the peak of the Lonely Mountain and wondered, where in those great halls, Fili might be. “Tie me up. Restrain me. Do anything so that I don’t hurt anyone.” Especially not Fili. He would never forgive himself if he did such a thing.

Dwalin looked him up and down.

“What if he’s out to hurt _you_?” Dwalin pointed out. If Fili were an alpha and he felt that Kili was encroaching on his territory, would he harm his own brother? No. No, Kili had more faith in his brother than to believe such terrifying things.

Kili shook his head vehemently. “No,” he said. “He would sooner die than harm me.” Of that, he was sure. “Please, make sure I don’t harm him and he feels no need to harm himself.”

“Your Uncle would be upset if I let the two of you die, I suppose,” Dwalin said. “Fine. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you,” Kili said profusely, grateful that at least he had secured such a promise.

Soon, though, the mountain and its’ inhabitants would test him and Kili did not look forward to such a thing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the boys to see each other!

Without the aid of any help, drawing a steaming bath for himself too thrice as long as normal. Hot water was easy to come by given the always stoked fires of the mountain, but lugging them without being too seen took several trips and by the time he had a tub filled halfway up, Fili had decided it was more than enough.

His quarters had the smallest bathroom of all the royal apartments, but it was still five times the size of what he’d had to share before and paid little mind to wanting more. Steam quickly filled the room, seeming as if a dense fog had swallowed him up. 

Fili was grateful for it.

He felt as if he could lose himself in the thickness. It was the first time he felt relaxed in a great number of days and he found himself slip deeper into the molten water (so hot that he felt it could slough off a layer of this troublesome omega skin). The water felt purifying between the wetness and the heat of it, granting him passage into a place where he did not have to worry of what he was.

He could be Fili, son of Dis, and prince to Erebor.

He was no one’s half. 

He basked in these comforting thoughts as he gripped the sides of the iron tub, slowly sinking further as though he could drown away his problems if he tried enough. It was as he dipped chin and moustache braids into the water that he heard _it_.

It was just the faintest echo, but it could not be mistaken.

It was the door.

The tension that had bled out of him now came back with force. Fili had posted beta guards outside his door upon his last trip for water and they had been given the command to let none in, lest they be summarily dismissed from the guard. The water that had been guarding him now left him feeling exposed. The steam in the room, once a protective veil, now hid enemies. Fili reached back for one of his knives, but he had shed them all when he’d stepped in the tub.

He let out a disappointed ‘ah’ when even the emergency little blade he kept sheathed in his braids was at the side of the tub and just out of reach.

Cautiously, Fili leaned forward and readied himself for whatever enemy was here.

“Know where you tread,” Fili called out his warning to the shadow in his midst. “You have not entered any weaklings’ chamber. I am a prince of Erebor and _I will tear you apart with a single blow_ ,” he growled, his rage beginning to bubble and boil higher than he’d ever felt before.

It was an unnatural feeling. His grip on the tub remained as strong as ever, but his hold on his emotions fell away and he was confronted with an overpowering tidal wave of desire that struck him so firmly that he physically recoiled. 

Out of the steam, the figure emerged and presented himself.

Fili felt as though he had been knocked back once more. The ache in his chest made him howl like an abandoned animal or a wounded child. It was want, but it was also warning. There, before him, stood Kili with murder in his eyes and Fili feared that he would let nothing stand in his way to claim what he desired.

Fili’s hips bucked upwards and the water sloshed around him, his hands gripping the tub both in an effort to ground himself and a counter-attempt to thrust himself upwards into Kili’s touch.

“Do not make empty promises,” Kili hissed at him, shedding his heavy overcoat to the ground of the bathroom as he advanced with a trembling step – his restraint evident only in the way his whole body trembled like an earthquake was striking him. “If you intend to take me apart, promise it will be in more than one blow.”

Fili’s heart quickened and he felt terrified, but also terribly angry and needy. It was as if Kili’s mere presence was awakening the very things he had been warned of. 

All the old lessons and good advice fled from his mind.

It would take a dragon to keep him away from Kili as the haze moved into his mind, as if the steam of the room infected his every active brain cell and took them apart with great care, replacing them with a steady rhythm of need:

_Want. Take. Keep._

It repeated again and again, this haze, and the moment his fingertips slid up Kili’s bare wrist, it felt as if his whole soul lit up. The keening sound came again, but it was more settled as he grabbed tight to Kili’s clothes and dragged him into the tub, soaking the both of them. Kili kissed Fili fiercely and Fili paid no mind to small thoughts of _he’s your brother, he’s never done this before, he’d never do this, what are you going to do?_ and instead focused on placing a possessive mark on Kili’s neck.

And so entranced in Kili’s skin and his beard and his body that Fili did not hear the rushed footsteps of the guards in the hallway, out to seek help.

* * *

“Quiet!” Thorin boomed out, the entire Council standing before him in the King’s chambers. 

It was as if there was a steady ticking in the back of his mind threatening to take him apart. Each moment that passed, he could focus on his thoughts or this persistent tick that spoke to him and told him that his body knew itself better than the mind. He had called the wisest dwarves to discuss their peril and the very moment they had arrived, chaos reigned.

“What do you expect, Thorin?” Balin had sighed, while the group fought before them. “Alphas, most of them. Their blood telling them foolish things.”

Thorin himself felt as if he were being pulled in four different directions at once. His skin felt thin, as though sliding a finger upon it too roughly would cause it to tear and let himself be open for the realm to see. He took clumsy steps down from the throne, willing and intent to throw himself into the fray.

The dwarves before him were wild. Even those not of alpha blood were still _dwarves_ and would not resist a good fight. He had a kingdom of fools to reign over and he was the worst of the lot.

“Enough!” he shouted, making his way through the crowd and watching with great and smug pride as the dwarves stepped back to make room for him. All of them except one. “Dain,” Thorin growled, looking to his cousin at the end of the way.

Dain stood tall as though no King could move him, but Thorin would have him moved.

“Erebor will fall,” Dain warned.

Thorin continued his steady walk. The dwarves who had room to ease back more did so with a great hurry, as though Thorin would find a new fate for them that would be worse than the madness rushing through their blood. He felt a dragon in him, as though every time his heavy boots hit the stone beneath his feet, they would light it afire.

When he reached Dain, he did not pause. He continued to press the Iron Hills ruffian forward until Thorin’s body was flush against Dain’s and he was well and truly stuck between Thorin and a hard place. Two, after weighing the fact that Thorin felt a stirring within him and his length, erect, began to form a knot (alike to what he had read).

Thorin shuddered, faltering when he felt his body change for the first time, and it was enough to give Dain an opportunity. He clasped the hilt of his warhammer tightly and used it to fend off Thorin, swinging hard and without mercy for his gut.

“Thorin!” called Balin, high and worried above the fray.

“King Thorin!” came another voice, but this was no voice from the Council. 

The pain was terrible, but also welcome. It gave Thorin a chance to work past the lust and focus on the newcomer to the chambers. He threw a relieved (if not a touch accusatory) look at Dain before craning his head in the direction of the man. It was one of Fili’s guards. “What?” he barked.

“It’s your nephew,” the guard said, with some alarm.

“Which one?” Thorin demanded, staggering to his feet with Balin’s help.

The distressed look on the guard’s face did not bode well. “Both,” was all he said before taking off for Fili’s chambers. 

Thorin knew he could not tarry overly long. “Dain, you have the Council. Think up something,” he commanded, plucking at Balin’s tunic to bring him along in his shadow. “You,” he said. “With me.” Each step was limped, not only because of Dain’s well-placed attack, but also because his arousal lingered, as if the scent the guard brought with him was enough to keep him intrigued.

The closer they got to Fili’s chambers, the more dread began to take root in Thorin’s gut. The smell that greeted him as they flung open the doors to Fili’s chambers was unmistakable. 

_Gold_ and the faintest hint of a jewel so bright and gleaming that it was the most perfect thing that Thorin had ever seen. If he closed his eyes, he could almost _feel_ the Arkenstone shining before him.

When he rounded the corner, however, there was no beaming white light, but that of a golden child. Fili was on top of a sopping Kili, straddling his waist in the bath and gripping his shoulders tightly, hauling him up against him. Fili, seemingly the aggressor, but the smell of him, oh, the smell of him. There was no mistaking it...

“Balin,” Thorin exhaled, panic heavy in his words. “Balin, you must do precisely as I say.” He used the last reserves of his strength to lean heavily on his advisor, directing him with precisely what he must do.

Balin glanced up at him warily. “Are you sure?”

“Do it.”

Balin nodded and twisted one of his walking sticks, enough so that when he swung as hard as he could, Thorin fell to the ground. Blackness did not come immediately and so Thorin lay there as it swarmed him, listening to Kili’s frantic cry for him, listening as Balin and the guards pried Kili and Fili away from each other.

They would be separated until they could calm this storm.

And he would be restrained.

“Fili!” called Kili. 

“Kili, _no_!” Fili replied in turn. 

It was this grief that Thorin last heard before the blackness consumed him and he gave himself over to the bliss of an empty dream.


	6. Chapter 6

The road seemed longer this time than the last Bofur had been on its’ winding paths, but he knew that couldn’t be the case as they had made it to Bag End much quicker than the last time they’d ventured here. For one, they had the aid of steady steeds, quick boats, and the skill to navigate through Mirkwood. Their escorts finally left them in Bree, at which point Nori huffed and Gloin rolled his eyes.

“About time we were rid of them,” Gloin complained while Nori muttered on about wanting a drink.

His companions had been strange and edgy the whole of the journey and Bofur had found it frustrating, but not enough to let it show. Strange, mostly because he had felt nothing odd about him. And if he were going to, he’d feel it by now.

It wasn’t really a secret about what the message they were carrying was. You didn’t send a letter with someone as nosy as Bofur, as curious as Gloin, and as criminal as Nori and expect it to be a secret. So it was true what the legends had to say. Alphas and Betas and Omegas, by his beard. Bofur felt a bit chipper at the thought of such a thing, given that he was firmly a beta by what Bombur and Bifur had appraised before he’d left.

“Suppose an alpha would never wear a hat like this,” Bofur had said.

Bifur had knocked it away, only to place it firmly on his head as if informing Bofur that he didn’t possess a lick of alpha blood before giving him a resounding nod. Bombur packed him up with food and a warning not to let Nori anywhere near the supplies, and then he’d been off.

The little tavern in the town seemed as good a place as any to pause for the night. “Prancing Pony,” Gloin huffed, still irritated by some unknown offense that had been digging at him since the very beginning of the journey. “This will do fine enough.”

“D’you hear that?” Bofur said, jutting a thumb in the direction of the tavern. “He says it’ll do.”

“Well, if Gloin says it’ll do,” Nori wryly agreed. “Then who are we mere dwarves to argue?”

They shared a laugh at that, Bofur sending Nori on ahead with _exactly_ the number of coins needed to pay for their drink. There was trust in a friendship, but Bofur wasn’t a stupid dwarf and wasn’t going to let his hard-won gold be taken so easily (at least not without a card game involved).

He took the time to bridle the ponies, finding himself coming to a sudden stop when a hand on his shoulder stopped him, spun him around, and stared at him as though he were an exotic dish. 

“You smell,” the maiden accused. 

She couldn’t have been older than seventeen in human years and was fair enough, Bofur supposed. Not near enough hair on her cheeks or her chest, but she had a lovely bit of round to her hips. He stared upwards at her, unaware that he smelled of anything but pony piss and the long road’s journey, but she seemed entrance.

“It’s there, but then it’s gone. The smell of cakes from the bakery,” she said, mournfully. “Where did it go, dwarf?”

Bofur shook his head. “Perhaps the cake was left in the rain?”

He used his height (or lack thereof) to find escape, easing his way into the tavern to find where Nori and Gloin had got to. He didn’t have to look very far, finding them both at the bar with three drinks to their name and far more food than that. And that was with the paltry amount of coin he’d given Nori, which meant the thief had supplemented his funds elsewhere.

“The maddest thing just happened,” he said, shaking his head. “One of the local girls came up to me sniffing me as though I had something in my pockets she wanted.”

Nori and Gloin looked over him in turn, both giving him a long look of appraisal that inevitably fell short.

“You’re just as ugly as ever,” Nori says cheerfully.

“And you smell terrible.”

Odd, then, that the young lass had seemed so taken with him. Strange. Perhaps she was under the influence of alcohol or the pipeweed that grows around these parts. That’d certainly do anyone’s head in. He washed away the strange run in and took to enjoying a fine meal and a good drink with a few tolerable dwarves.

They spent the night at the inn and by the next mid-day, they had found their way to Bilbo Baggins’ house.

“Would you look at that,” Bofur marvelled. “He hasn’t repainted,” he said, tapping the mark with his walking stick. 

It was actually a relief to hear the familiar grumbling and mumbling coming from inside. Bofur didn’t have the heart to tell Bilbo that they could hear every single word and it wasn’t entirely fair to be so crude to your guests, especially when they’d come from so very far away. He imagined he wouldn’t have to do it, given that Gloin and Nori would be quick to silence any coming rudeness.

The door was finally drawn open and all that escaped Bilbo was a singular ‘eep’. 

Followed by a stunned, “H-hello,” as though he’d seen a ghost.

“I know Nori’s ugly, but he’s not enough to make you speechless,” Bofur joked, making his way inside without an invitation as he dug out the letter from Balin. Belatedly, he remembered his manners and performed the bow he’d been shown before he left. “Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, I come bearing official message from Erebor,” he said, handing it over. “Have you got any of that cheese?” he asked, now that all the fripperies were done.

“In the kit...you came all the way from Erebor just for a letter?” Bilbo asked, stunned. 

“Important letter,” Gloin said knowingly, giving him a lewd wink that was going to give Bofur nightmares for ages. “Open it, laddie.”

Bilbo took the letter from Bofur and held it, heavy, in hand. “I believe you three must be very hungry,” he said, when his eye caught the seal of Thorin Oakenshield and suddenly it seemed he wanted nothing more than to take a great pause. “Please, let me feed you after coming so far.”

And despite their wanting to see Bilbo’s reaction, Bofur knew that not one of them was ready to refuse such an offer.

* * *

They had separated him and Kili.

Part of Fili was grateful for the space, but it was a very small part at the moment. The rest of him wanted to tear down the stone walls that stood between him and Kili and get closer to him. Indeed, he could smell him even though they were at a great distance. These were the thoughts that greatly overpowered him. He could not sleep and when he did, the dreams were wicked and violent, as though Kili would come to him no matter the method.

He let out a long breath and let his head fall back against the wall. 

It was, conversely, the same thing Kili was doing upon the other side. They had discovered this spot when they had first come to Erebor and it was part of the reason they had chosen these adjoining rooms.

In this one spot, a tiny hole as small as a mouse had been bored between the stone and it was enough to pass small gusts of wind, all manner of scents, and now, their hushed voices. They could not leave their rooms for there was a guard heavier than would be given to an elf and besides that, Fili was grateful for the distance.

“I missed you,” Fili said, his head inclined towards the hole at the ground. His hand drew small circles near it, as though he would be able to reach through and caress Kili’s fingers. “I always miss you when you go to Mirkwood. I fear that each time will be the last time I see you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kili’s voice was muffled, but each word was audible. “Are you okay, Fee?”

The distance helped some. While Fili could still smell Kili through the walls (he felt as if Kili’s whole being had permeated and sunk into his skin and no amount of bathing would change that), he also felt more like himself. 

“I’m an omega, Kili,” Fili got out, the strangled self-accusation bitter on his tongue. “The princeling omega. I can already imagine the whispers,” he said, a heavy and sick feeling weighing deep in his chest. 

There was silence from the wall.

And then, cautiously and in so small a voice that Fili barely heard it, came the question:

“What if you were mine?”

Fili wished for nothing more than to acquiesce and give himself over to Kili, but there was a problem with that. “Before all this, Kili, you would not ask for me in such a way.” Fili felt sick and empty saying the words, but they felt true as they passed his lips. “And though I had thought of you since I was but a young dwarf coming to age, it was not something that could be shared. We did not grow up as princes should and so those times apart when you grew and I came back to a stranger began to build a yearning in me.” He closed his eyes and thought back to that first trip when he had been away from his uncle and brother to help guard a treasure.

When he had returned, it seemed as though Kili was a different dwarf.

He was fetching and brilliant. It was as if the joy of a starry and moon-filled sky had imbued one single dwarf with all its’ beauty. “I kept it locked and secret.”

The derisive laugh was not what he expected in kind.

“Do not mock me,” Fili growled, feeling that pulsing anger return.

“I don’t, I promise,” Kili replied. “It is only that you are deaf, brother. You have not heard the names I cry in the night or saw the jealousy when other dwarves kept you near. I have watched for thirty years while you have been courted and now that you are an omega and I know you are, Fili, I can’t smell it or see it, but I _know it_.”

So the question returned.

“What if you were _mine_ , Kili?” Fili asked, for it was just as important to ask it the other way around. After all, if the omega was only half, then the alpha must be claimed in his own way. “Do not deceive yourself. You would be every inch mine as I would be yours.”

“Then you agree?” That boundless energy in Kili that had always been so envious was so clear in those strained words. Fili could even picture him bursting at the seams, eager to be closer.

He did not. Not yet.

“If I am omega, then you know what the old myth said about them being fertile,” he warned cautiously. “Until we are sure that whatever time we spend together and whatever we _do_ together is safe, I do not trust us alone and I do not trust myself to be pledged to you.”

He could almost see the disappointment cresting on Kili’s face, but he knew it had to be done.

“I want none else.”

“You have not met any else,” Fili pointed out, laughing ruefully. “I am the only omega you know.”

“You might not be! Maybe I’ve sniffed dozens of them!”

“Kee,” Fili chastised. Despite his words, Fili knew that he would give himself over to his brother if given even the slightest chance. After fearing that he had lost him to another’s heart, he knew he could let the same thing happen again.

Misery began to sink in deeper than it had before.

He wanted to be with his brother.

He belonged there, heart and soul.

“Soon, Fili,” Kili whispered, the sound barely making it through their secret passage between their rooms. Balin is, no doubt, working to find a way to help calm our blood that doesn’t have to do with mating. 

“And what of Uncle?”

They had both watched with horror as they were separated and Balin knocked Thorin unconscious. The line of Durin did not seem quite as steady now as it had before, for it seemed that their desires could control them with ease. 

“Him, too. You should get some sleep, Kili,” Fili said hoarsely, feeling ever the mature older brother as he dispensed whatever advice he could. “Rest up and maybe the sleep will help to calm your mind. Perhaps in the morning, we will see each other?”

“Lofty dreams.”

“I cannot help that I dream of the one thing I want most and should be happy to see his dwarven face in my dreams,” Fili said, basking in the comfort of what knowing Kili wanted him felt like. “Even if he only grew a proper beard very few years ago,” he teased. “Go to sleep,” he whispered, whether to Kili or himself he did not know.

And dreams would come and soothe them through the night.


	7. Chapter 7

On their way back into the city, Dwalin had bruised one of the guards, nearly throttled another, and looked well on his way to putting a boot in Balin’s face. Dis had seen more than enough. 

When she had met the boys’ father, he had been a boorish sort, but never this bad. She had never loved the loud parts of him so much as she had tolerated them, caring for and coaxing out the quieter parts that matched hers. She had come to love the quiet nights spent recording their family history and, after the boys were born, tending to them with stories and craft.

Now, though, she felt at the beginning of it all again with a loud-mouthed, bad-tempered, _mean_ little dwarf.

“You,” she growled at Dwalin, poking the point of her axe against his chest. “With me.”

“I made a promise to Kili,” Dwalin _dared_ , dared, to use her son as an excuse.

“The boys are in their rooms and I have employed an army to keep it that way. You’re coming with me.” She left him no room to argue by the way she had plucked his jerkin in her hand and was forcibly dragging him along. True, she hadn’t fought in any wars recently, but she had raised Fili and Kili and dragged the two of their sorry hides all over Middle Earth. She was stronger than some of the most brutish forces in the army and she knew it.

No one gave them any trouble as she pushed Dwalin down the hall. Some of the guards even sniggered and others muttered a firm ‘about time’.

She shoved him the last bit of the way, taking pleasure when Dwalin stomped his way inside like an indolent child. “Did you have to do that in front of everyone we know?”

“If you are to keep acting the way you are, then I absolutely must,” she countered. “Do you think that my assignation as a beta will give you leave to do what you will with me?” she challenged, the light glinting in her beard and the beads as she placed her hands on her hips and stared him down.

Dwalin grunted.

Which, in Dwalin-speak, was essentially a cowardly ‘yes, that was exactly what I thought’. 

“You don’t know what makes a beta’s heart tick,” Dis said with great derision. “You alphas, always clouded by lust and anger and desire. And the omegas! No better! They are so quick to please and to give themselves over and command that they are clouded. Do you know who ran Erebor when last the spirits were loose? True, the alphas gave many an omega a child and they were plentiful, but while the lot of you were busy with your cocks out, the betas did the work! They commanded the armies and ruled the government!” she shouted. “You’re useless when you’re in a rut and the betas never falter. Steadiest, bravest, _me_ ,” Dis said.

Dwalin seemed to be relaxing some, but there was still apology (and the hint of a challenge) on his face. “I’ve never said you were anything less.”

“Then don’t think you’re my alpha,” Dis said. “Your sweet words are gone, though I had always suspected them being Balin’s. Still, I know you’re not an utter heathen. Is he really gone, then? The Dwalin I know?”

She feared if he were. She feared what it would mean for Kili and for Thorin if every trace of sane thought evaporated like breath on a cold winter’s day. 

Dwalin closed the distance between them, reaching out with the curl of his fingers to brush at the beard of her cheeks, thumb rubbing the bead that clasped her beard together.

“And what if I were to ask for your heart anyhow?”

“So you’re calm now?” Dis snorted.

“You know I’m heated at the best of times,” Dwalin wryly confessed. “An alpha’s heart has moved mine to rage, but if you would allow me to ask for your iron steadiness to temper this heat?”

“You do not want an omega?” Dis replied, still eyeing Dwalin coolly even though she leaned subtly into his touch. “One to tide you over and give you children?”

“I have been reliably told that it is the beta that is the bravest and steadiest,” Dwalin said.

So he was learning something after all.

“I suppose there’s hope for you yet.”

* * *

“Balin’s letter had a note of distress in it.”

It had taken Bilbo four days into the journey to finally bring up the letter that had brought the dwarves to the Shire. They’d had a bet running on it and now that he finally spoke those words, Bofur sighed heavily and dug out a satchel of coins, throwing them over to Nori. Bilbo looked betrayed for a brief moment before giving them a knowing look, as though he had been expecting it all along.

Nori leaned over in his pony and sniffed Bilbo up and down.

It was a crude and animal-like thing to do, but Bofur supposed they were all wildlings when you got down to it. “What Nori is trying to say with very little tact is that there’s something coming back from the past.”

“And it’s made Thorin want to see me again after all these years? I’m no young hobbit anymore,” Bilbo said knowingly. 

“You weren’t before,” Bofur said. 

“I did not think he’d forgive me, despite our letters,” Bilbo admitted quietly. “Perhaps ten years ago, maybe twenty, but thirty years is a long time between visits.” Cautiously, he rubbed his hand over his pocket, as though he were taking stock of something he possessed. Bofur paid it little mind, thinking it was likely Thorin’s letter and old affections died hard. “Balin wrote and said that chaos was upon Erebor and chiefly in Thorin’s heart. What did he mean?”

They’d taken wagers over who would have to explain this to Bilbo and Gloin had lost.

“Should’ve brought along a book of old tales,” Gloin muttered. “I’m not repeating myself, so listen firm and fast, Burglar.”

“I told you to stop calling me...”

“Long ago, the dwarvish people had a bit of a beast inside them. At least, that’s what our ancestors like to call them. Better names came along,” Gloin said. “And so we call them three things, now. Alphas, who go into rut and are overpowered by rage, lust, greed, and power. Betas, who are steadfast and brave, who usually keep things going, then there’s the omegas, the ones who birth and nurture, but are every bit as powerful as the alpha, don’t be fooled. Gimli’s an alpha,” Gloin said proudly. “Just like his father.”

Bilbo seemed to be following along, which was better than Bofur had been the first time.

“So then, Nori?”

“Alpha,” Nori confirmed. “It’s giving Dori a bit of a headache. Ori’s a bit of a beta right now, we think, but I’ve been plucked from home to go on this quest, so it’ll be a nice little surprise when I get back.”

“And you?” Bilbo turned to Bofur.

He opened his mouth to say that he was a plain old beta, but something made him pause for the slightest of moments. It’d been that encounter with the lass in Bree that made him hesitate. Bofur didn’t know why, though. Quickly, he shook off the doubt and beamed. “Beta, brave and true. I’ll be running Erebor while these two are busy mounting the walls.”

Bilbo fiddled with the reigns of the pony, clearly avoiding a question he wanted to ask.

“You want to know about Thorin?” Bofur prodded.

“Only if you’re telling.”

“He’s an alpha and given how stubborn the line of Durin can be at the best of times, he thought maybe someone with a sensible head on his shoulders might come around to talk him out of it,” Bofur said. “That, or you’re walking into a beast’s den.” 

Bilbo tightened his fingers on the ropes. “You know, you keep talking like this and I’m going to turn this pony around.”

“No, you won’t,” Bofur said knowingly. “Because you want to see him again.”

Bilbo gave a frustrated small sound, in which Bofur knew that he had him pegged. He pressed his lips together and they continued to ride in silence, though Bofur could actually feel his smug mood overpowering the journey back. The elves would be there to guide them soon, stopping in Rivendell for supplies, and then it would be a straight shot back to Erebor.

* * *

Dis exchanged a wary look with Balin, waiting in the antechamber for the guards to arrive with Kili and Fili. The boys had been separated for three days, now, and she could only imagine that they were growing tense. “You don’t think the space will only have made them worse.”

Balin seemed amused and worried, at once. “I think they’re definitely going to be worse. Are you sure you don’t want to treat them as we have Thorin?”

“Only my brother is that much of a martyr to treat himself the way he does,” Dis said disrespectfully. “Hopefully when Bilbo gets here, he’ll be able to talk him out of such a stubborn thing.”

Their conversation was cut short when the doors to the room were drawn open. Three heavy-set guards made their way into the room, bringing Fili with them and depositing him with Dis and Balin. Soon, Kili would be brought along, as well.

“How do you feel?” Dis asked gently, running a hand over Fili’s braids and hair.

“Strange,” Fili confessed.

Even stranger, thought Dis, was that Fili didn’t seem to be putting off the smell of an omega. To a beta, the smell was not overpowering and could be calmly endured, but still detected. At this precise moment, Fili smelled of nothing at all.

However, that smell quickly came in the form of Kili, when he entered the room.

“It’s not possible,” exhaled Balin.

“I thought Fili was the omega,” Dis said, stricken by how wrong they were.

“So did I,” Fili said, staring at Kili and straining against the hold of the guards to get closer to him. It happened so quickly that it might have been a dream, but as soon as Kili was close enough, Dis was overpowered by the scent hitting Fili as though a dragon landing from flight. As if it had never happened at all, Fili’s omega scent was back, leaving her as puzzled as she had ever been.

Dis did not know what to make of her sons no longer being what they seemed to be. Kili was meant to be an alpha and Fili had been scented as an omega. It was the very truth before them.

Yet, only moments ago, Fili had not been an omega at all, as if Kili had wished to share whatever his brother did. Dis felt frustration and anger the likes of which an alpha might endure as she began to stalk back and forth in front of the two, who had been lined up and separated by guards. It did little to stop them straining towards each other, eager to touch now that they had been let out. 

“The both of you!” she said, scolding them as though they were only ten and five once more. “You can’t do anything normally, can you? You can’t be one thing? You have to be both? You’re so jealous of your brother that you wanted to share in it?”

Balin stood behind her, staring at the both of them as though he were trying to puzzle it.

“I’ve only heard tall tales about such a thing,” he marvelled.

“We’re currently living a myth,” Kili said snidely. “What’s one taller tale?”

Balin turned towards the tea-set that he had requested be sent up. Each cup of tea for the boys had been tempered with a number of herbs that Bifur, of all people, had concocted after reading through the Old Khuzdul in the tales that spoke of how to control the winding, whispering, willful thoughts that controlled the minds of the dwarves.

“Here,” Balin said, holding out a cup to each of them. “Drink these.”

Kili sniffed at the liquid warily. “The water’s gone off.”

“It’s tea, Kili,” Fili patiently (and bemusedly) said, nodding gratefully to Balin as he took his wooden cup with both hands, wasting no time in sipping the liquid. Dis could see how Fili would want to quell the feelings going through him. Though the liquid was burning, Fili drained it dry within moments, handing the cup back to Dis with a brief smile. 

Kili still looked suspicious, but he glanced to Fili for guidance and upon the first sign that Fili drank, he did the same. 

Dis breathed out a sigh of relief, aware she had been holding in a great deal of tension given the situation. It had only grown worse since the boys walked into the room and she imagined they would have to now start looking to each great tale, myth, and history that had been written down, for it seemed they were all possible.

“If I send the guards away,” Dis began when the tea had been consumed and it had begun to settle, “are you boys going to behave?”

They nodded in tandem, the dutiful princes that they were, and Dis let Balin have the last decision in this. Balin chuckled as though he were about to say something terribly funny, but all he did was dismiss the guards.

The joke, Dis supposed, was on them.

“You two,” she turned on them when the door slammed shut with a heavy finality. “You two! What is going on? Speak,” she commanded. “One at a time,” she added, before the two could babble and finish each other’s sentences as they had when they were younger. “Fili, what came over you when you entered?”

“It was as if the strange spell over me faded away as soon as I knew I would be close to Kili again,” he admitted. “And then as soon as I saw him, it slipped back over me like a webbing,” he chose the words bitterly, no doubt thinking of the spiders all those years ago.

“Only you could have two such complicated sons,” Balin chuckled, pouring himself a glass of wine for tea would do him no good. “An alpha with a flair of an omega in him and an omega with an alpha’s need to dominate his other half. It’s a good thing we have a plan.”

Fili and Kili exchanged a long look, one of those looks they often got when they were speaking to each other with little need for words.

“Boys, sit down,” Balin instructed. “We have a proposition for you and I believe it is ever the more urgent now that we’ve seen you for what you truly are.” He brought the full gallon of red wine with him to the table and did not sit until Kili and Fili found opposing places at the table, where space would keep them from touching.

It seemed the tea was doing well to calm their hearts, as well.

“You are both the heirs to the line of Durin and now that Fili can conceive a child, he will be sought after,” Balin began.

He was interrupted swiftly by a low growl from Kili’s throat, hands curling into the table like claws. “Calm yourself,” Dis ordered, standing between the boys in the event she had to restrain them.

“As I was saying,” Balin continued, when Kili no longer treated him as a threat, “he will be sought after by many alphas, but also by those who would wish to control the line of Durin and its’ omega heir. Luckily, if Fili does carry a sliver of alpha in him, he will not be given over to a heat so easily. That said, we came up with a solution that should suit the two of you very well.”

“What solution?” Fili asked, when Kili was too occupied staring at Fili as though he were prey.

Dis shook her head wryly, not sure she had ever imagined herself saying what she did next. “You two are getting married.”

“I won’t have you give him up! Not for politics, not for the line of Durin, not for anything!” Kili wildly reacted, on his feet in an instant. Fili was not much better, staring at Dis as though she had betrayed him with a dagger in his heart. “And I won’t go either! I won’t submit, no matter what strange inkling of an omega’s blood runs through me!”

Balin sighed wearily. “I don’t know why I bother,” was all he said. “We mean to each other. You’re to marry _each other_ and ensure the whole kingdom doesn’t lose its head trying to woo one or the both of you! Once the pair of you are properly bonded, your smell will change,” he assured Fili. “And none would dare touch you, lest Kili would take their head off. Though I suspect you would do it before he could even reach his bow and he would never get the chance,” Balin remarked.

Kili slowly sank back into his seat, a considerate look on his face.

“So then Kili would be mine?” It was Fili who spoke first, something Dis hadn’t expected. 

“You would be each others’,” said Dis. “And it would serve the people well to know that the line of Durin will continue, _purely_ for that matter. What do you think?”

She knew she had them the moment Fili locked eyes with Kili. The warmth that shone through on his face was impossible to miss and she knew that Kili had wanted this since the very first stirring of an alpha had started. She had them and she could protect them and offer a small token of happiness.

Perhaps there was a happy ending for them after all.


	8. Chapter 8

The joys of toy-making had long been one of Bifur’s hobbies, but since the axe had been embedded in his skull, he hadn’t been making very popular models. No one seemed to want the toys that were slightly disfigured or were a bit macabre, even though Bifur thought they held a great deal of character. Still, he had a few loyal customers and he enjoyed the work of it. 

He was becoming well known in Erebor for something else, too.

Since the axe, Khuzdul and Iglishmêk had been his way of speaking and he had learned both inside and out. It meant that he knew the old variations of both and it meant that when people began presenting as alphas and omegas, he also could read the lore written in the old dialects that had been lost to progress.

Bifur himself was a beta, which was a good thing. He didn’t like thinking about what would happen to him in a heat or a rut. Besides, he was enjoying this newfound turn in history. It had made him a very rich dwarf. Bombur was feasting in the money that he lavished upon his family and Bofur would have his share when he returned.

All because of something as simple as herbs.

When Balin had discovered that Bifur knew the exact combination of herbs that the old dialect spoke of to subdue the heat (and not only that, but to inhibit the procreation of more little dwarves), he had become a frequent visitor. Soon, word got out amongst the other Ereborians that Bifur was something of a wizard when it came to mixing and meshing, pestling and smashing. 

He could steal away a heat and replace it with ice. For some (for many), it was a very wanted thing.

Bifur was a very rich dwarf, indeed.

“Another round, I’m afraid,” came Balin’s announcement as he entered Bifur’s small shop, waving at his nose to try and escape the stench that the brewing of herbs always gave off. “The boys are plowing through it like it’s mead. No surprise, given what we’ve found out.” 

As with every time he came into Bifur’s shop, he spoke while Bifur worked on the order specifically meant for the young princes while Balin toyed with objects in the shop (often wary and unnerved by some of the toys).

“I’m sure you know all about it, but each of them has got a sliver of the other spirit within them. Kili a bit of an omega, Fili with a flair of the alpha,” Balin said ruefully. “Lucky that they were both so eager to claim each other and even more eager for Erebor to know who they belong to. I’m sure we’ll be contacting you for many more concoctions as we lead up to the wedding.”

Bifur paused at that, glancing up to gesture and ask if they were both happy about that.

“Fili and Kili?” Balin replied wryly. “Ecstatic. If not for their own stubbornness, they’d probably be copulating like hares right now, but Fili wants to make sure the herbs take root and Kili would never do anything against Fili’s will. That said, they haven’t hit a rut or a heat, so there’s no telling what will happen when that’s triggered. Mahal help all our ears when that happens. We’ll have to clear the halls.”

Bifur snorted under his breath, reaching for his shelves and taking inventory as he did. If things kept on the way they were going, he’d need a trip for new ones. Maybe the elves had some they would be willing to lend.

“Thorin, though...there’s a trickier case. I’ve got a special order for him,” Balin said, tapping another scrap of parchment that he set down. “Between the lingering gold sickness that seems to have mutated into a lust for omegas and the alpha in him, we’re going to need quite a bit of herb to calm his mind.”

Bifur leaned over to look at the order, raising his brow. 

“I know, I know. It’s hefty enough to put an oliphaunt down, so with luck, it _might_ work on Thorin.” 

Balin smiled ruefully, tapping his foot twice on the tiled floor and waiting for a reply.

There never would be one.

“Right, then, I’ll leave you to your work. There’s a royal wedding to be planned, now and goodness knows it’ll fall to Dis and I to do it.” 

Bifur watched Balin go, muttering a quiet thanks to the maker for payment and praise, before he returned to his work. Bombur would be happy to see the new payments from today and Bifur had hoped to buy something for Bofur before he returned from the Shire. 

Onwards to work, it was.

* * *

“I may never grow used to it,” cited Bilbo as they unloaded their things from one of the boats from Esgaroth, hitching satchels to backs and keeping walking sticks in hand. “Elves hurrying us through the wilds and men treating us like royalty. It’s quite a change,” he said, none too upset with such changes.

“Gold has a funny way of making friends of anyone,” Nori said, tapping his nose. “Besides, Thorin’s been smart enough to let his advisors and his nephews do most of the trade. Kili works with the elves and Fili with the world of men. They’re not half bad at it, considering they’re impetuous devils the rest of the time.”

Bilbo could see it, too. Kili had held such affection for Tauriel and Fili held a great deal of patience and a willingness to endure the taunts of men. He was glad to hear that the fates of the Company seemed well in hand.

Their journey took a turn for the strange as they reached Dale, which was decked in bright pink and purple blooms framing yellow flowers _everywhere_.

“Hello, then, what’s this?” Bilbo curiously asked, touching the petals as he passed them. They seemed to keep coming and there was an air of revelry in the rebuilt streets of the city.

“I’ve no idea,” Bofur replied, sounding as confused as Bilbo felt. “It certainly wasn’t this wild when we left.”

“You there,” Gloin summoned one of the villagers. “What’s this for?”

“To celebrate the royal engagement, of course! We couldn’t be happier,” the young woman cheerfully said. 

In an instant, Bilbo’s heart sunk deep into the recesses of his stomach. He couldn’t actually work out words or thoughts. In fact, he felt as if he couldn’t even think, let alone speak. He had come all this way, _all this way_ , to hear that Thorin was engaged to wed someone else. His mouth felt dry and he yearned to take the ring from his pocket and slip away until none could see him and the humiliation that was surely all over his face.

“Who is he to wed? Who is marrying the king?” Bilbo finally found his voice.

“The king?” the girl echoed before brightening and laughing warmly. “Don’t be silly! This is for Prince Fili,” she said, lifting up one of the garlands. “He is engaged to wed the honoured Kili. The line of Durin continues and we know that their heirs will be good to Dale.”

Bofur and Nori exchanged a long look. “It seems we have missed a great deal.”

Bilbo, though, was practically glowing with the relief of such news. Thorin was still untouched, he was not to be wed to some high-ranking dwarf from the Iron Hills for a happy association and was unlikely to be, given that Kili and Fili together satisfied the kingdom’s need for a royal to wed their princes.

In fact, it seemed as if it had been summarily dealt with. 

Someone up there in those halls was quite clever and Bilbo had a feeling he knew exactly which dwarf had come up with such an idea. Mood now riding quite high, Bilbo stood a little straighter and his step was a mite quicker. 

“Come on, then,” he coaxed his travelling companions. “It seems we’ve an engaged couple to greet! We mustn’t tarry for that!”

“He had no problem tarrying for second breakfast in Rivendell,” he could faintly hear Gloin complain.

“Or tarrying when he slept in after too much wine in Mirkwood.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes, remembering that as much as he did enjoy the company of dwarves as his friends, they really could be very irritating at times.

“Onwards,” he whispered to himself, beaming at the thought of greeting Thorin once more after all these years and after so much had been put behind them.

* * *

“Now,” Dis advised Fili, running her hands over his fine blue tunic and making sure the gold circlet in his hair shone for Kili to see. “If Kili starts to unnerve you or the herbs aren’t taking as well as you expect them to, I’ve left a bell in the room. Ring it three times and I will send Dwalin inside.”

“Mother,” Fili complained, trying to get her hands off before she fussed with the clothing too much and wrinkled it. “The herbs have calmed me and I think I will be fine. Bifur has done a wonderful job.”

“And your suppression herbs? For procreation?”

“I’ve doubled my dose,” Fili promised, as he was none too eager of the thought of suddenly being with child when he was still coming to grips with the mere ability to do such a thing. “I swear, I will keep my head around Kili.”

“You still have yet to have your first heat,” she said worriedly. “I worry that despite the good the herbs have done, such desires will countermand them.”

“If they do, it is Kili,” Fili assured her calmly. “And you have already said I have a touch of the alpha in me. I will summon it to quell any unwanted advance.” What Fili did not say to her was that he did not think anything from Kili would be untoward or ill-advised. “Tomorrow, we will go to Dale and take lunch with the people so they may celebrate the engagement.”

“Remember, they believe you to be first cousins,” Dis instructed, leading him down the hallway to the new chambers that had been prepared for Fili and Kili and were meant to be used after the wedding. They were simply going a little ahead of schedule. “That you are mine and Kili is Thorin’s. That you are as close as brothers and took on such a title of a desire to be closer kin.”

Fili scowled, hating the need for such small lies, but he supposed he understood. The realms of men and elves matched their royalty in a similar way and they merely followed suit. 

“Don’t make that face,” Dis warned. “Do you really want Kili to see that face for the first night you will spend together without any supervision?”

Quickly, Fili remembered the joy of the situation they were now in and he brightened in an instant. The thought of being with Kili without a chaperone and with the herbs to protect him sent him to a place that was blissfully untouched by thoughts of uncontrolled want or lust. Dis seemed content with him and pressed a fond kiss to the top of his head. 

“Be good,” she warned.

“I will be ever watchful of Kili,” Fili promised.

“And I don’t want to hear about it,” she added, drawing the doors open with one graceful step backwards. 

Balin stood there and at his side was Kili in the most sumptuous and rich purple clothes. They practically embodied royalty and there was gold woven into braids in his hair and adorning his wrists in thick bangles. He stood there with his gaze on the floor before him, as though the herbs had triggered that latent omega streak in Kili.

He need not be so shamed, though. 

For Fili looked upon a prince. 

Dis quickly ushered Balin away and the door was closed firmly behind them. Fili did not advance until he heard the finality of the lock clicking into place. Only then did he cross the room to sweep Kili into his arms, burying both hands in the elaborate twists and turns of the braids in Kili’s hair and stealing a long-wanted kiss. Once he was kissing Kili, he found it difficult to stop and even though the kisses were lazy and sweet, the inches between them slowly fell away as Fili splayed his fingers over Kili’s back and kept them together as he explored Kili’s mouth.

Eventually, one of his beads got caught between his lips and he had to ease back and fix it, brushing his palms over Kili’s full beard.

“I feel ridiculous,” Kili complained.

“It is not the first time you have had to wear such things,” Fili reminded him. “Besides, what about me?”

“You look perfect in your clothes. You’re every inch the future king.”

“And you look wonderful in yours,” Fili assured, clasping Kili’s hand to bring him closer once more. 

They kissed their way back to the table, where Kili helped to grip Fili’s hips and lift him atop it to sit. Once there, Fili spread his legs wide as they went, tucking Kili in between them as he eased back and forth in time with Kili’s kisses, as though a wave upon the shore eager to reclaim the sand. 

Fili felt elated, light, and floating. Soon he realized that a smile adorned his face and Kili had noticed, as well. 

“What has you so happy?” asked Kili.

“You really need to question me? _You_ , Kee, you make me so happy. I don’t feel the need to submit to you, I’m not feeling that sliver of need to overpower anyone who touches you, and we’re going to be married,” he spoke the words with the ebullient joy they deserved. “The herbs work and I will not be with child until we plan it. It feels as if everything, for once, is right.”

Kili grinned back at him and though he had passed one hundred years of age, he looked no older than the boy of twenty he once was.

“The herbs don’t suppress all desire, have you noticed?” Kili asked, conversationally.

“Yes, I have,” Fili replied, quite suspicious now. “Why?” 

Fili’s eyes widened when he realized precisely why Kili has asked such a specific question. He pulled Fili to the very edge of the table, where his feet only barely touched the ground, and worked his fingers through the laces of his trousers, fingers tangled up in them only to tug and bring Fili close enough to kiss.

“Kili,” Fili warned, but it was interspersed with a joyful laughter. “Don’t stop,” he managed. 

The herbs could suppress some of the urges, but when Kili was acting the way he was, it seemed a nearly impossible thing. Fili almost wanted to tumble into that abandon because if this was how it felt, he would happily spend a lifetime in his thrall.

Kili waggled his brows as he gave a tug on Fili’s trousers, dragging his arse precariously over the edge of the table. From there, he began to loosen them, eyelet by eyelet until Kili had ample access to Fili’s length. 

“See?” Kili teased, brushing bristly kisses against Fili’s inner thigh. “Herbs can’t stop you from wanting me and they can’t stop me from needing you. They give us the calmness to think, which is good, because I’d hate to be lost to madness the first time I did this.”

“Did wha...” Fili’s question was swallowed by a shocked gasp, a delighted ‘oh’ when Kili took him deep into his mouth without warning or even inclination that he was going to go so _deep_. He gripped for the edge of the table, bucking back against it when the pleasure hit him in a wave unlike anything he had felt before.

He had not experienced any intimacy in years, not when there were such lessons to be learned in becoming a future king. Still, at the same time, he felt as though he had built up so much yearning and want and no one could make him feel this way the same as Kili.

“Kili,” Fili gasped, fumbling to grasp his hair, catching it with one of the gold chains that adorned the braids at the top of Kili’s head, tangled in his fingers. He bucked his head back, dimly aware that Thorin might kill them for doing this where they were, but beyond caring. “My _Kili_ ,” he exhaled. 

Kili’s technique was sloppy, but enthusiastic. He had not done this too much, but his eagerness to make Fili feel _good_ was most clear.

They would be utterly doomed when they let the herbs wane and gave themselves over to a heat and a rut that would claim them.

For now, though, he had the presence of mind to simply enjoy Kili’s mouth on him and the scrape and the mark his beard would leave. The sounds Fili was making were undignified and incredibly unbecoming for a king-to-be.

For a lover, they were perfect.

He did not want to make a mess of Kili and tugged him forcibly off before he could finish the job. “Come,” Fili beckoned, sliding Kili’s hand into his own calloused one so that they might bring Fili off together, the mess an afterthought for when Fili had taken care of Kili.

And speaking of...

Fili smirked wickedly, pressing slow kisses down Kili’s neck. “How shall I repay the favour, mm?” he lazily asked.

“Whatever you choose, I do hope you take your time,” Kili replied, sinking back into Fili’s touch. “My betrothed.” 

The thrill Fili felt at that was unparalleled and he knew that he would not let Kili’s perfectly-chosen word go unrewarded.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter mildly contains some aggressive Thorin in a sexual situation.

After two days of milling about Dale and Erebor, Bilbo knew that he could not put off seeing Thorin. He’d been so eager to see him, at first, but that was before Dwalin had lumbered along, smacking Bilbo’s back and chattering on about Thorin’s mood and his dominance and the sheer animal nature that was conquering Thorin’s mind.

“It’s a lucky thing he knocked himself out before he could do something to that nephew of his.”

Bilbo felt sick to his stomach. True, Thorin had moments of weakness, but Bilbo could not begin to imagine he would ever treat his kin in such a way. Surely the gold sickness could not merge with this new beast to make Thorin so unruly. Bilbo had been filled with terrible wariness and that earlier eager need to see Thorin dissipated some in face of the fear of seeing him as less than his best.

Eventually, though, he could not ignore that he had come all this way to Erebor because of a single letter.

“You know, laddie,” Balin said, catching Bilbo on the overlook, marvelling over Dale’s progress, “of all people, he won’t bite you.”

Bilbo gripped the railing tighter, leaning back and forward on his toes. “Can you really promise that I will walk into that room and not lose all respect I hold for that dwarf?” 

“He thought he’d lost all of that years ago,” Balin advised. “When he chose the Arkenstone over you.” 

Bilbo’s laugh was greatly bitter, not caring to be reminded of something that was so old, yet so fresh when it came to the wound in his heart. He hadn’t seen Thorin after that because Thorin had barely made it back to the world of the living. Bilbo had departed before any of the Durin line could heal enough to see him off and had not regretted it until the first letter appeared from Thorin, speaking with profuse guilt and sorrow that he had treated Bilbo in such a manner. The letters went on to talk about sharing the wealth and it seemed that whatever gold sickness had been in Thorin’s mind, it had quickly dissipated. 

“I’m not frightened,” Bilbo felt he had to clarify. “It’s just been so very long, is all.”

“Every moment that passes makes it a moment longer,” Balin said wisely.

Bilbo knew it was sound advice and that Balin had well-earned his spot alongside the members of the Durin line. Still, this was a task that would require no small amount of courage and if things grew too tense, Bilbo had an old treasure that would help him, if need be. He mustered up a smile and gave Balin a steady nod of his head.

Besides, if he lingered any longer, he had a feeling that Fili would press him into helping to plan a wedding since Fili did not care for the planning of such an event so much as what the event would bring him.

“I suppose it’s better now than never. Lead on,” he gestured. 

Balin took him through the winding hallways until they were in the royal corridor. While Balin took steady care to narrate as they went, Bilbo had little time for any thoughts but that of what would happen when he walked into Thorin’s study after he had been captive for two weeks, only being let out to eat, pace, and be cooped up once more when he felt a rut might be coming.

“Balin,” Bilbo said suddenly, standing outside of Thorin’s doors. “What do the people think? He is a King locked away in a room. I can’t imagine he’s done much governing from there.”

Balin’s smile was very sad. “They’re occupied with the impending wedding,” he said. “Unfortunately, you’ve hit the true trouble on the nose. I’m not sure Thorin _can_ be a king, not without a bonded mate. People are going to notice that soon, if not already. I have the feeling that were it not for his own troubles, Dain would be the first in line, in more ways than one.”

Bilbo tapped his fingers frantically against his thigh, nodding as he studied the great door before him. “If I scream...?”

“Guards are on the listen,” Balin assured. “We won’t let harm come to you. We have to take care of our burglars.” It was the last Balin had to say before he put some distance between them, quickly ending the conversation and giving Bilbo no true other option but to press onwards.

Bilbo offered a smile of gratitude before turning to study the looming stone door before him. He took a deep breath as he entered one of the great rooms of Erebor with a feeling of déjà vu inherent in his mind. He had been ready to face a dragon before and this time, there would be a great beast, but he did hope that this one didn’t want to eat him alive.

One, two, and three steps into the room and already Bilbo knew that he might have spoken too soon.

Thorin had been restrained with thick leather bindings. He stood, with his limbs outstretched, and a thick gag in his mouth. Bilbo could smell a musty sort of stench in the air, perhaps from the plates of food lying about. There was evidence in the lack of dust along a path on the floor and the eaten meals and the rumpled sheets that Thorin had not been restrained the whole time, but it didn’t look like he’d been out very often.

“What have you done to yourself, you daft old dwarf?” Bilbo murmured worriedly, not hesitating as he began to unbuckle each of the restraints with little care for his own safety.

Thorin seemed to panic at the sight of him and Bilbo neatly plucked away the gag.

“Do not untie me, Bilbo,” Thorin warned. “My sense may flee at any moment.”

“Then I will have to be sensible enough for the both of us.” Bilbo breathed out sharply and crouched down to undo the straps around his ankles, marvelling at the red welts the leather had caused. “What on earth have you done to yourself?”

“What I have needed to,” Thorin gruffly replied. “I have no bond, nor mate. I cannot control myself. Do you not know of what I speak?”

“Hobbits don’t have alphas or omegas,” Bilbo said, watching Thorin as he tugged off the rest of his bonds, as though he had decided he might as well be fully free rather than do anything by halves. “Like the men and elves. I would not even believe it had I not seen several acts of dominance in the halls.”

“Are my people wild?” Thorin demanded, stalking back and forth. 

“Spirited,” Bilbo chose the word carefully. “They’re using the impending wedding as an excuse to drink and Balin says the alcohol in combination with an alpha’s spirit can do no good.”

Thorin sniffed the air, as if the mere mention of his nephews had caused him to scent them out, as though they were potentially near. 

Bilbo watched cautiously, rooted in place as though a very ancient tree. He did not want to take another step closer, for his wariness and good sense preserved him in place. It also gave him the perfect observation as Thorin began to slip away from himself.

There were little signs, at first. The tic in the corner of Thorin’s mouth grew more aggressive and his posture hunched forward, as though stalking prey. His steps, formerly long and graceful, became short and aggressive. Bilbo did not need to know of Thorin’s predicament to know that when the King next turned to face him, there would be hell to pay.

He could no longer tarry in place.

“I smell you,” Thorin said, blinking as though through a haze. “Not omega, not alpha, but _you_. I smell the cakes that you entertained us with in Bag End and the honey of your tea. I smell the road on your feet, and I smell the wind in your hair.”

Every proclamation drew Thorin nearer until he was circling Bilbo.

Bilbo had two choices. Stand there and be consumed, or move. He chose the latter, cautiously picking a pattern that had him mirroring Thorin’s movements and keeping a bit of space between them. Bilbo circled around Thorin, feeling quite like he was facing Smaug once more. There was no dragon near them – only a dwarf whose blood boiled with a new disease he had only now inherited. It looked, to Bilbo, as though the alpha in him wanted to dominate and claim the hobbit as his, but every time Thorin stepped forward, Bilbo stepped back. Lowly, a growl rose from Thorin’s chest.

“Mine,” Thorin snapped. “I would keep you until the only thing you smelled of was _me_!” This time, when he lunged, Bilbo nearly tripped when he stepped back, but he regained his traction and used every pound in his small body to lean forward and poke a finger straight in Thorin’s bulky chest.

“No,” said Bilbo. “You may be King under the Mountain, you may be an alpha making up for lost time, but I am neither a beta, nor omega and I am not an alpha to be cowed. I am a hobbit of the Shire,” Bilbo insisted. “And I will not be growled at as though you are a common animal of the woods!”

Bilbo knew it could not be possible, but it felt as though Thorin’s body burned like he had a fire within him sparking the coals. 

“No child will come of a coupling and I am not yours to possess,” Bilbo warned. He had never truly imagined that reuniting with Thorin would be this strange, but an odd Tookish part of his mind was merely grateful that he was seeing Thorin again. “Thorin Oakenshield,” Bilbo summoned up his very sternest voice, mimicking Gandalf as best as he could, despite the panic in his eyes. “I did not travel Middle Earth to be your conquest!”

Bilbo did not mention that he did not mind the notion of being shown to Thorin’s chambers with a sturdy bed beneath him, but it would certainly not happen like this.

Something cleared in Thorin’s eyes and the haze receded. 

“Thorin?” Bilbo asked tentatively. “Are you back?”

“Yes,” Thorin replied, though he seemed and sounded a bit stunned. “Have I harmed you?”

“It was a close call,” Bilbo decided that honesty would be the best thing for it. “I’m unharmed,” he assured, reaching out to take Thorin’s hand in his own and give it a reassuring squeeze. “You haven’t found an omega to bond with? Balin says if you do, he’s sure you can control the ruts with ease.”

“There is a problem in that, Master Baggins.”

“O-oh?”

“Yes. I’ve long known exactly who I want at my side. I am a King, now, and each day I struggle not to let the gold sickness that plagued my grandfather’s mind consume me. Any omega that I bond with must be of true heart, but apart from my nephew, I fear that most omegas yearn for one thing and one thing only -- the riches of an alpha King and his hoards of gold.” Thorin pressed his lips together. “And besides that, I have given my heart to another.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said once more, disappointment rife in his voice.

Thorin glanced over Bilbo and instantly Bilbo wondered if he looked well. “I’m not sure what they would say, after all, if I were to tell my people that a burglar from the Shire made off with my heart and I have no inclination to steal it back.”

One more, thought Bilbo. One more and then he would surely speak some actual words. “ _Oh_.”

Perhaps his visit to Erebor would not end in madness and pain, after all.

* * *

After their lunch in Dale, Fili began to feel braver when it came to venturing outside of the royal chambers. He felt in control of himself to a degree he had not experienced since before the spirits awoken and he felt utterly settled. Balin had quietly admitted that while part of it was the herbs, a great deal came from the fact that he had clearly chosen his bonded.

Fili cared little about why it was he felt so blissful, only that he did.

He knew that when he returned from a day’s hunt, Kili would be there and that due to their marriage, they would often take their trips as diplomats together. It was a future filled with brightness, but it did possess one variable that he wished to quantify.

It was why he had suggested Kili roam on his own for a wedding present before Fili slipped away. Cautious so that none would recognize him, Fili lifted his hood and kept his head bowed down. People would likely smell the lingering trace of the omega in him, but they would also smell Kili’s claim on him.

Only the stupidest of dwarves would dare challenge such a claim.

Luckily, Fili did not have very far to go. With the events that had come to pass, Balin had made himself available at all times and had a set schedule he followed. Today, Fili knew that Balin would be at Bifur’s shop to procure the ever-growing order of herbs for the King, his family, and all noble folk in Erebor. Fili knew he had timed it perfectly when he entered and found Balin staring at one of Bifur’s toys in great horror.

“You know, those were my favourite as a child,” Fili admitted, pushing his hood back. “They might look a bit scary, but they always surprised you. Hello, Bifur,” Fili greeted his questing companion warmly. “Thank you, again, for the hard work you’ve been doing.”

“You shouldn’t be out alone, laddie,” Balin warned.

“Why? Because someone might sniff me up and down like a warg?”

“No,” Balin replied. “Because if Kili finds out others have been sniffing you, he’s liable to be jailed for murder before the two of you can make it to the altar.”

Fili knew that perhaps Kili could be a bit wild at times, but he would never do anything to stop the wedding from going on as planned. Fili had made sure Kili promised that and given that they were currently sleeping apart, Kili’s best interests lay in ensuring that Fili was happy with his behaviour for when the wedding night arrived.

“The guards will alert us of a skirmish,” Fili said, picking up some of the bottles of herbs. “I need to speak with both of you privately and it’s critical that we speak before the wedding.” 

He scowled when he was met by two knowing expressions.

“I know _that’s_ going to happen,” he huffed. “I’m here to discuss what happens after that. When...” He took a deep breath and willed himself to say the words. “What happens when I want to stop taking the herbs? How will I become with child? How will I even deliver such a babe?” he asked, going paler at just the thought of it. “Between you two, one of you must know.”

“I’m afraid that experience will be your steadiest guide, but we will try,” Balin said. “You must also realize that given Kili’s small possession of an omega’s spirit, if the wind strikes right and all signs align, he could find himself with child, too, but it would be a miracle. It would require him to become fertile and you to knot at the same instant.”

Bifur grunted something in Khuzdul and Fili, who had always been a touch more studious than his brother, understood every word.

“Thank you, Bifur, for your rousing encouragement that if anyone could do it, it would be us,” he remarked dryly.

Bifur signed _you’re welcome_ before gesturing that Fili should continue.

“In answer to your question, once you stop taking the herbs, Kili will need to knot you. I imagine it will be a very painful experience, given that I doubt you’ve ever been taken and certainly not with an alpha’s length. Once inside, his seed will work with your fertility to create a babe. Bear in mind that there is a physical change for you, too, if you will carry the child.”

Fili blushed furiously, but he imagined he knew well enough what would happen. “Or the child would never pry free,” he said, the tips of his ears a brilliant red.

“I stand grateful that it is you and not your brother asking these questions,” Balin said. “Once you have conceived life, there will be new herbs to ensure your system is prepared to cope with the change. I imagine the first few days will be terribly painful, my boy. I do not think Kili will leave your side. The pregnancy will last as it would for any dwarrowdam’s and when it is through, things will return to normal. Well,” he amended his words. “As normal as I suppose they’ll ever be.”

Fili exhaled and took a moment to compose himself and his thoughts. 

He didn’t necessarily want to bear Kili’s children so soon, but he also didn’t want to go into a marriage without at least knowing. That mere thought brought something else to mind. “Hold on,” he said. “How do you know all this if this hasn’t happened in many years?”

Balin’s smile was cool and delighted. “Elves, while not often moved to it, are very talkative when drunk.”

It seemed the flush in Fili’s cheeks now wished to spread to other parts of his body. Of course it would be at this very moment that Kili had sniffed him out, following his scent like a hound into the shop. “There you are,” Kili said warmly, wrapping his arms around Fili from behind. “Fili, you’re all red! And you’re burning up! What have they been doing to you?”

Fili glared at his companions, warning them that a single word would have them experiencing the sharp end of one of the many knives he carried.

“Did you find me a suitable wedding gift?” Fili asked, hoping to turn the subject while he had the chance.

He tried to turn in Kili’s arms, but was denied the chance by Kili’s strong grip on him. “No, no you won’t get a glimpse. I have it, and I have it on my person, but you’re not to find out what it is until the night we are wed.” There was a boyish thrill in Kili’s words. “I cannot tire of saying such things. Until we are wed,” he said once more, pressing a bristled kiss against Fili’s cheek. “Come, Mother said she wanted to talk to us about the feast of our wedding night! She wants to know what you want!”

And off he went, as full of noise and energy as he had always been.

Fili gave a weary, but fond sigh. “Peace and quiet, that is all I want. Peace, quiet, and a locked door with him in the room with me.”

“Steady on, Fili,” Balin advised. “You’re almost there.”

Fili left to follow Kili, but he paused in the doorway. “Balin, where is Bilbo? I saw him venture into Uncle’s chambers, but I have not seen him since. Are they both still alive?”

“Bilbo is being accompanied on a long tour of Erebor,” Balin seemed pleased to report. “And Thorin has not killed anyone. I’d say that was a rousing success with much of the thanks given to Bifur, of course.”

Bifur grunted with gratitude and, assuaged of their safety, Fili gave a parting nod before running after Kili, careful to grasp his hood and disguise himself as though his smell did not mark him without a single moment of vision needed.


	10. Chapter 10

“Thorin,” Bilbo said, rapping his knuckles against the same thick rock he’d seen several times before. “Is there a reason you’re showing me the same dim hallway for the third time?” Bilbo had been very patient, he thought. He’d endured Thorin’s many needs to pause and take herbs, had gone the long way around many times to avoid a challenge from another alpha, and had even allowed Thorin to sample some of the heavier dwarven food fineries.

This, though, was getting a bit much.

“There is a group of alphas from the Iron Hills out there,” Thorin said, his voice sounding strained. “After I challenged Dain, it would be wisest if I were to stay out of their way.”

Bilbo was honestly a very patient hobbit. He had endured _quite_ a bit in his lifetime and Thorin’s cautiousness should not cause such a reaction, but perhaps he was beginning to leech a little of Thorin’s alpha moods, because he had absolutely had it with the tiptoeing around. Hands on his hips, he leaned forward and regarded Thorin critically.

“What’ll do it, then?”

“Pardon?” Thorin remarked, seeming stunned that Bilbo had taken such a tone with him.

“You!” Bilbo said, poking a finger in his face. “What will stop you from worrying about every corner we’re about to take?” This was meant to be Thorin’s kingdom, but each hallway was tainted with the worry that he had wronged kinsmen lurking there. Bilbo felt a strangled laugh threaten to overtake him when he imagined the prison that life would be.

Thorin’s look was practically afire, but his gaze lingered upon Bilbo.

It was enough to remove some of his prior courage, clearing his throat. “What?” Bilbo asked, for he was the one who had brought up this line of conversation and would be the one to finish it.

“If I had a mate, I am sure they would help me.”

Bilbo narrowed his eyes. “I don’t take kindly to that sort of passive comment. Ask what you want to ask, Thorin,” Bilbo demanded, ignoring the part where he had, without argument or comment, accepted himself as Thorin’s mate – omega spirit be damned. 

“If the edge were to be taken off, I am sure I would be suitable for company.”

Edge. Right, an edge. Bilbo had a great many ideas, but the chambers were a great distance away and they didn’t have that kind of time to return there. Besides that, Bilbo truly did want a proper tour of Erebor and the way Thorin kept slowing the pace, he would be an old, grey hobbit by the time they finished it. That was when the idea came to him, as swift as a clever riddle. This was a very dark hallway, after all, and Thorin had so carefully steered them away from people that they were without witnesses.

“Of course,” he murmured to himself, finding an exact solution. “That’s all it would have taken this whole time? You stubborn idiot,” Bilbo railed. “Why didn’t you just ask?”

“It is an embarrassing thing, Burglar,” Thorin snarled at him. “Would you admit your greatest weakness aloud?”

“If someone whom I loved very dearly could help me, then yes,” Bilbo conceded. “Yes, I very well might.” He stepped closer, ensuring they were shrouded by the shadows, and brushed his fingers over the rich material of Thorin’s tunic. Bilbo inhaled deeply and when he exhaled, it was filled with nervous laughter. “We haven’t done this in thirty years.”

“I hope you will remember how,” Thorin murmured. 

He seemed languid and far calmer now that Bilbo had his hand down Thorin’s trousers. It was utterly amazing how that worked and if it weren’t for Bilbo’s first-hand knowledge of how quickly Thorin could be set off, he’d suspect this of being fake. Bilbo nudged Thorin backwards until his back hit the wall, at which point Bilbo (though smaller and certainly without any aggression) took control.

“You were never too hard to predict, nor control,” Bilbo quipped, a clever little smile on his lips as he wrapped his hand around Thorin’s length, stroking lazily over the width of it before rubbing his thumb over the tip. It drew out a rumbled moan from Thorin, akin to a large cat, and Bilbo felt great delight in evoking it. “One touch and I had you coming apart.”

“If I recall, you were not much better.”

“You were always very good with your mouth,” Bilbo retorted, tightening his grip as if to punish Thorin for such a comment. He imagined the utter stop in motion was the greater punishment, though. “I had to reward it with the verbal applause it deserved.”

He resumed his strokes, his gaze fixed on Thorin’s face to watch every small reaction, each minute change in his expression, and most importantly, Bilbo watched him so that the very moment he came apart, Bilbo would know.

It was strange to return to an act performed so many years ago, but in a way, it was like greeting an old friend. The motions were swift, true, and he still remembered the pressure Thorin liked and the exact place to rub to make Thorin bend over in half, like he’d been broken.

And the best part, the very best, was the moment Thorin came undone.

Bilbo had always loved it because Thorin shed all his worries and his woes in that moment. Now, on the edge of it, Bilbo refused to miss it. “Please,” he begged. “Please, Thorin, please let your troubles go. You are not my alpha, you don’t need to be my king,” he murmured, lifting up on his toes so that he could tip his chin up and brush a pleading kiss to Thorin’s lips. 

Eyes open, he watched as with one last stroke, Thorin came apart.

Huddled in Bilbo’s strained arms, Thorin breathed heavily. 

“Did it work?” Bilbo chanced to ask.

“I believe it did,” Thorin replied, his voice rough with moaning. “I fear it is only a temporary measure. I imagine your ministrations could always keep me calm, but what sort of king would I be, then?”

Something occurred to Thorin, then, a thought that flashed in his mind. Bilbo wanted to know exactly what it was, but Thorin did not seem in a mood to speak further and Bilbo was in no rush to return to the Shire.

They would talk of it eventually.

“Shall we continue on the tour?” Thorin suggested.

“Yes, please,” Bilbo agreed. “To the nearest bath, I should think.”

Everything, _every moment_ , of the last thirty years almost seemed worth it when the comment brought forth a beacon of a smile from Thorin that was youthful, calm, and filled with joy. Bilbo would have to work on earning more of those.

* * *

Now that the journey was over, Bofur was enjoying his homecoming. He hadn’t been a poor dwarf to begin with, but coming home to find Bifur was now one of the richest dwarves in Erebor was a fine surprise; even finer when he realized that Bifur planned to share the wealth. The gold had been enough when he had only one-fourteenth of the reduced treasure, but now the coins were coming fast and furious to control what everyone was feeling.

“Trust you to take advantage of a crisis,” Bofur saluted, bringing a round back to the dwarves he had collected to take stock. In total, they had managed to claim Nori, Ori, Bifur, Gloin, and Oin along with Bofur to share in the drinks. Bofur did miss having Fili and Kili around, given that they had always been a rollicking good time, but he supposed that being the future rulers of a kingdom would change things.

Dwalin was supposed to come, but Dis had sent word that he was ‘occupied’ with a small post-script indicating that he had made a rude remark to Balin and in kind, Balin had responded by knocking his brother unconscious.

“Here we are, lads,” Bofur said, raising a glass to toast. “Here’s to being home.”

The tavern had been one of the first businesses to be re-established. It had a very cozy feel to it with its’ low-hanging lanterns and the oak wood they had shipped in to make each chair, table, and the bar itself had been installed with marble from the mountains. It felt a lot fancier than the folk who drank in it, but Bofur had always had a good time.

Nori accepted the drink with great care. “Are you going to tell us, yet?”

“Tell you what?” Bofur asked, barely glancing up from passing the drinks around.

“You! I kept sniffing you out on the ride there and back again, but it never stuck with you. Not like Ori here,” he gestured with a jutted thumb. “You should hear Dori. He thinks because there’s two omegas in the family, we ought to be an attraction to be visited. Still, hasn’t stopped the two of you from fending off admirers, has it?” 

“The herbs have done a wonder convincing people my smell doesn’t exist,” Ori said graciously to Bifur. “Still, they can still smell it on me. Dori seems to appreciate it. Says it’s people seeing him for the gift to dwarvenkind he’s always been.”

“He’ll take care of himself,” Nori assured. “Maybe it’ll stop him trying to take care of us.”

“Never,” Gloin snorted. 

Bofur sniffed the air mildly, as if trying to see what Ori’s scent was doing. There was a strange sweetness to it. It was as if he knew exactly what that smell was, but it wasn’t overpowering in any way. The beta in him (or the omega, depending on the hour) wanted to smell it again and again because it was familiar.

“Well?” Nori prodded. “You’re the only mystery left. We’ve all announced ourselves. The princes put it on some banners. What are you, then?”

“I think I might not be one or the other,” Bofur confessed. “You know the rumours flitting about that Fili might not be a pure omega? Well, I suppose it’s a bit like that.”

Bifur had a knowing look on his face, like he already knew.

Given the intricacies and twists of Bifur’s genius mind, Bofur wouldn’t be surprised if he did. “Ori, that smell is intoxicating,” he said, trying to change the subject. And it was. He barely had the ability to think about it without wanting to edge closer. He moved chairs, dragging his stein over and leaving a trail of condensation on the table as he eased closer to Ori. “What is it about you?”

“Maybe that I’m an omega?” Ori suggested, tapping his fingers on the table.

Bofur glanced up to see the other dwarves on the edge of their seats, leaning forward and looking at them as though they were the entertainment for the day. Quickly, it gave Bofur a clever little idea.

“Ori,” Bofur said pleasantly, only loud enough for him to hear. “How would you like to make a bit of coin?”

“What? How?”

“Lads,” Bofur called out to the others, not answering Ori’s question. “How about a little wager?”

Bofur knew very well that enticing the boys with a bet was sure to end in someone’s pockets being a tad deeper. He felt as though given the crowd around him, he had a fairly decent chance of walking away with a victory. It wasn’t as though he needed the money, but there was _pride_ to be won.

“How about a few coins says I can seduce Ori without being an alpha?” Bofur suggested.

There were several snorts of derision. Coins hit the table with speed, challenge writ on each dwarf’s face. Bofur knew he had them in an instant. Now it was about letting that small part of him out, the one that was different from the rest and the one that could blossom and bloom and entice all sorts.

It was also the part of him that was going to help a bet.

Ori seemed to start with surprise. “What’s that? Is that...?”

“Me?” Bofur replied, with a cheeky smirk as he leaned closer to give Ori a better smell. True, since retaking Erebor, they’d had their pick of bath salts and perfumes and hadn’t smelled of the road in ages, but there was something to be said for an unbonded omega’s scent. “It very well may be.” He leaned in, the fabric of his hat brushing against Ori’s cheek. “Can you keep a secret, Ori?”

“Yes,” Ori breathed out.

Bofur flicked a glance to the other dwarves, watching them with great intent – though varying in degree. Bifur didn’t care a lick about the two of them, but he cared about the coins. Gloin seemed heated, overpowered by a need to win, Oin had his hearing aid tipped in their direction, and Nori...

Well, Nori was looking at Bofur with a bright intensity that could burn through stone.

“I might not be all beta,” Bofur said. “Smell it?”

“Yes,” Ori agreed, blinking in awe. “That’s incredible!” He slid his palms up Bofur’s arms and burrowed in deeper as though trying to get a better smell at it, almost like a cat perusing its’ owner’s lap. Indeed, Ori was now well and firmly in Bofur’s lap and when Bofur turned to claim his victories, he discovered that they had the attention of more than just the group. 

It seemed they had entranced the whole of the tavern with their sweet omega scents duelling and working together in harmony. 

Bofur cleared his throat and tapped Ori lightly on the shoulder. “I think we’ve won,” he said, allowing that bright part of him to dim and fade, bringing him back to being sensible old Bofur and not much else. “Drinks, anyone?” he suggested, but knew that maybe he would have to depart the tavern with an alpha’s protection tonight.

At least he had a few more tokens of gold to speak for it.

And there was that strange look in Nori’s eyes to consider. That would be a fine use of his time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter definitely holds some mature content, so heed the fic's rating here.

Though mere weeks had passed since the wedding had been announced, Dis felt as though long months and years weighed on her. Decisions were demanded and though Fili did his best to arrange them, he often delegated them to Kili to include him in the process. It was a sure guarantee that Kili would arrive, head bowed low, and admit that he did not know what to do. 

Thus, Dis would take over whatever decisions he owed.

Unfortunately, Fili continued to give Kili reign over the wedding and her youngest son did not have the spine to tell his betrothed that he didn’t care what sort of game was made for the feast, nor where he wanted the dwarves from the Blue Mountains to sit. “If he asks that I choose his positions in bed, I will strangle the both of them,” she muttered, giving a guttural curse in Old Khuzdul.

“Not very becoming of a Princess, is it?” Dwalin remarked, having snuck up on her in the dark. “Cursing like that. What would the people think of their future Queen?”

“You know I’ve taken myself out of the line,” she replied crossly, her temper already short. “It’s Fili in line next with Kili as a consort.” While thirty to forty years ago, she might have plagued herself with nightmares at the idea, she didn’t mind it. Fili had grown into a fine and responsible prince and while Kili was still wild and reckless at times, he had been tempered by the quest, as well.

They were truly grown and had established a great number of alliances throughout Middle Earth. 

When it came time for them to sit upon the throne, they would be well-received and she was grateful for that. She scribbled another missive to the florists of Dale to request herbs for the feast when she felt strong hands come down on her shoulders.

“You’re tense as rock,” Dwalin said, as if stunned by such a thing.

“Thorin is barely holding it together and I am helping plan a royal wedding for my two sons, who may turn me into a grandmother within the next decade,” Dis reminded him. “Should I be as fluid as water?”

“Once they are wed, they will be out of your hair?”

“Deeper entwined in it, I should think,” Dis said, given that she had taken on many governing duties now that alphas and omegas were losing their minds to the desire that pulsed through them at inconvenient times. Some dwarves (purists, they called themselves) refused to take the herbs, citing they made them weak.

Dis didn’t care what it made them. If they stopped being able to function, she would have them locked in the dungeons for disturbing the kingdom.

Thorin might not take kindly to such a thing, though.

“How are they?” Dwalin asked, settling across the table from Dis.

“Who?” she wondered of which duo they spoke. “The boys?”

Dwalin grunted his assent. 

“Nervous,” Dis said, but she wasn’t surprised. “They’ve gone from young boys with ill-advised crushes on one another to betrothed to be wed and acting like first cousins. They’re not very good at the latter, but it gives some comfort to the masters of Lake-town and Mirkwood, though some know better.” She glanced over Dwalin’s shoulder to see one of her children lurking in the doorway. “And with far, far too much cunning for their own good,” she said, raising her voice. “Eavesdropping where they shouldn’t be.”

Fili stepped inside the room, a sheepish expression on his face. “I knocked, but no one answered.” His gaze slid to Dwalin, looking slightly discomfited (as he had never truly known the extended of Dis’ relationship with the dwarf and felt it best not to ask). “There is a private matter I wish to speak about with my mother.”

“Do you want me to go?” Dwalin asked, sounding faintly bemused about the fact that as soon as Fili had asked, Dis grew more stressed.

She waved him away, tapping the seat beside her for Fili to come sit beside her. Dwalin, of course, felt the need to challenge Fili in some way though the alpha streak in Fili was mild. Instead of leaving without a fuss, Dwalin took the time to press a very intimate, very involved kiss to Dis’ lips.

When he truly left, she was aflame with desire and Fili looked horrified. 

It set the scene for their conversation, at least.

“What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked, gesturing for a goblet of water. Fili poured two, sliding it across to her. “And please, I am still young. If you wish to stop my heart, give me fair warning.”

“Then please consider this fair warning,” Fili dutifully replied.

Well, she had asked for it.

She nodded wearily and gestured for Fili to continue, keeping in mind that whatever it was would surely give her heart a challenge. “I want to stop taking my herbs,” Fili said, lifting his head up high. “And I would like Kili to do the same.”

While she had been expecting the worst, she had not anticipated _that_. “ _Why_?” she demanded, wary as to why Fili would want to give up the control of his body. “Fili, you are calmer than you’ve been in months. Why would you abandon that?”

“Thorin has not experienced a true rut, but only the stirrings of one and has locked himself away,” Fili spoke. “I do not want to marry Kili and attend to our duties only to be struck by our first heat and rut. Be sure that I will continue to take the necessary herbs to avoid childbearing, but I believe this is something Kili and I should do before our responsibilities make it difficult for us to lose control for the first time while tending to the kingdom’s needs.”

Dis sighed, shaking her head. Through and through, Fili was her son down to his diplomatic thoughts. “You want to lose control in a controlled environment while you still have some privacy,” she said. “Only you could try to plan something so wholly unpredictable.”

It was a terrible idea with a glimmer of a good idea in its midst.

“Did you really come here for permission or just to inform me that you and Kili would be doing this, regardless of what I thought?”

Fili shifted uncomfortably, which told her that it was the latter. She supposed she ought to be happy that they were speaking to her about it rather than performing as they had when they were younger and trying to get away with anything they could under her nose. 

“Fine,” said Dis. “I’ll inform Balin of your plan and adjust your schedule so that you’re working on documents and nothing that requires you being in the public eye. With luck, you and Kili in such close proximity will trigger it and we can get you back on the herbs before the wedding, where you _will behave_ ,” she said sharply, as though a stern word could keep his hormones in line.

Fili seemed relieved by the conversation, nodding eagerly as he pressed a fond kiss to her cheek, his beads cool against her skin. “Thank you, Mother.”

“Oh, don’t thank me,” she grumbled. “You would have done it without my permission.”

His grin was wicked and mischievous at once, a confession in itself. “Yes,” he agreed. “We would have.” One more kiss to her other cheek was all Fili had to offer her before he bounded out of the room, likely to begin purging himself and Kili of all traces of herbs.

Balin was going to be upset that she agreed to this, but what better choice did they have?

* * *

“Have you drank it?” Kili asked eagerly, pacing the room of their chambers

Officially, they would not be their chambers until the wedding was over, but given that it was tomorrow and they were trying to push each other into a mindless state, Balin had thought it wisest to move them into the room a bit early. Kili watched Fili eagerly, who held the cup of tea in his hands. It was meant to flush out the herbs preventing his heat and while Kili had pushed them all out of his system, they seemed to cling stubbornly to Fili’s.

They had one more night before they were expected to be the perfect sons of Erebor and Kili knew if they couldn’t his the peak of this cycle tonight, it might be years before it happened and Kili, already at edge and burning with need, refused to let that much time pass.

Apart from taking Fili apart with hand and mouth, they had not had proper intercourse yet and Kili _burned_ for it. He dreamt of it during night and day and every small thing Fili did seemed sexual, whether it was the wetting of his lower lip or the braiding of his hair in such steady motions.

Kili only managed to keep himself controlled by will and virtue of Fili not being ready for him, but he had a small wedding present that might help.

Fili finished the tea and turned the cup upside down as proof that there was none left. “Good,” Kili said, stalking forward and pushing a vial into his hands. “Now drink this.”

“Kili, what on earth…?”

“Drink it,” Kili ordered. “It is a potent liquid that, once drank, will evoke a deep desire to match the one that already burns.” He continued to pace, for he was waiting for that moment in which Fili’s scent would become so overpowering and so intoxicating that he would want to drown in it.

Fili stared at the vial with worry. “And where did you find such a thing?”

“Places.”

“Places,” Fili echoed, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Places near the Black Market? Is this what you were doing while I was at Bifur’s?”

“Maybe!” Kili replied, so high-strung that he thought if Fili flicked his hair so, he might come undone without a single touch. “Please, Fili, please would you drink it? The wedding bears closer and it has been days off the herbs. If your heat does not come and we cannot trigger it, who knows how long it will be before you properly have one? Before I’m pushed into rut?” He could feel his body piloting each action and this was how he found himself on his knees before Fili. “Please,” he begged.

Fili stared at the vial cautiously. “It will not do away with the other precautionary herbs?”

“I was assured it would not,” Kili said. 

Fili paused another moment, but then tipped the liquid back and swallowed it in one go, wincing as it made its’ way down. 

“Burns,” Fili said, blinking tears out of his eyes. He looked a tad nervous, which Kili could understand, but there were no nerves to be felt. They were both of age, both to be married the next day, and Kili would make sure that no harm came to Fili. “I’m worried.”

“Of what?”

“That I will not be what you expect,” Fili confessed. “That, perhaps, I will be … bad in bed.”

Kili burst out into laughter. 

“It’s not funny!” Fili shouted at him. 

“It is, it truly is,” Kili snorted. “Given that I once overheard Nali and Sigur discussing how amazing you were with her and him, on two separate occasions. I think they were in the line to woo you for your affections before Mother announced our engagement. Bad in bed,” he echoed with a derisive scoff. “Honestly…”

He expected Fili to respond, but his brother did no such thing. 

Rather than speaking, he had bent over double with his hands pressed against his stomach. Kili panicked, instantly, wondering if he had been tricked. What if the vial had done something insidious to Fili’s insides? What if it was a plot to bring down the line of Durin with one fell swoop? What if…?

Then it hit Kili like an overpowering wave.

The smell was so strong that Kili staggered back, breathing heavily as the thick sweet stench of an omega’s heat began to roll over him. He choked on it, happily, breathing it in and feeling utterly blessed that they did not have to wait. “By my beard,” Kili sung out, stalking forward as instinct guided him. “Thank Mahal it happened.”

Fili raised himself up and Kili felt as though he had never seen him look so beautiful. Nothing had changed in mere moments but the slide into a heat, but he seemed to glow and when Kili drew in a deep smell, it was an overpowering scent of safety and comfort assuring him. It was _Fili_ , nothing more, nothing less. 

“You shine like a treasure,” Kili murmured with great, reverent awe. “ _My_ treasure.” He pushed into Fili’s coat to retrieve one of his smaller knives, knowing precisely where Fili kept them hidden. 

Unsheathed, it glinted dangerously in the light and Kili’s sharp gaze was all the warning he gave that if Fili were to move, he would be in for a nick. He breathed in Fili, he breathed in the smell of coming home after a long hunt and knowing a warm meal and a tall candle awaited. He smelled those fine meats Fili roasted and the plain cinnamon cake he baked for special occasions when they were away from Mother and Thorin.

He smelled every single delight that had kept him warm and loved all his life and Kili nearly sobbed with the familiarity and the perfection of it.

He turned his attention to other matters. His hands had begun to shake with anticipation, but he calmed them in order to shove at Fili’s coat. His tunic – a cheaper material, one that he wore only because it was a temporary piece of clothing, was sliced away by Kili’s hand. The laces of his breeches were cut open and Kili abandoned the knife to the ground with a great clatter as he began to rip at the remaining shreds of cloth between them. 

“Kili,” Fili moaned, when Kili got a hand down and cupped Fili’s length. “What are you going to do?”

Wild with desire, seeking pleasure, but aware that he did not want to accidentally impregnate Fili on the off-chance the liquid in the vial had done something to him, there was but one firm idea in Kili’s over-sexed mind.

“You,” he breathed. “I want your length in me, to fill me, to sate me. Will that do for you? Will that calm the heat?”

Fili seemed to buckle at the suggestion, giving no more than a keening whimper as he grabbed Kili by the shoulders with great force. Kili scrambled to find the other vial that he had purchased, fumbling it three times and nearly cracking it open as he capped it loose. It was an oil to help slick the passage before Fili entered, something that Kili had been purchasing quietly and in secret for many years in the hopes that perhaps there would come a day when it would be used.

Now, on the eve of his wedding, he scarcely believed his luck.

Fili shucked off his boots and rid himself of the last vestiges of his torn clothing until he stood there naked before Kili. He was a muscular dwarf with roundness at his thighs and hips, though his waist narrowed more than most dwarves. He made up for it in his broad shoulders and Kili was drawn to how the golden hair on Fili’s head was everywhere.

He felt dazed to the point that he did not even register stepping forward, but he did. He was in a frenzy to strip, tripping at least once as he followed Fili to the bed, clasping the vial in hand. He gave it a short throw and stalked the remainder of the way like a creature after his prey, pinning Fili face-down to the bed.

“If I get too wild,” Kili murmured, pressing reverent kisses down the length of Fili’s bare spine. “Shove me off. Don’t let me hurt you.”

Fili seemed incapable of words, writhing his hips against the bed as if seeking some pleasure. Kili hated the sheets and the bedding in that impossible moment for the sole reason that they were stealing from him. 

He snuck a hand around Fili’s body and took him in hand, slicking up his length with the oil in a hurry. When Fili’s moans grew nearly too much to bear without Kili snapping, he turned his brother over to catch his gaze, spilling the oil on Fili’s fingers and clasping him by the wrist as he guided him lower. 

“In me,” Kili instructed, his whole body trembling as they neared what he wanted so badly.

Fili was no better. Every touch felt as though it vibrated and when those fingers slid up and inside of him with that gentle shake, Kili thought he might actually come apart with a loud shout. Every moment that passed brought him deeper into the haze of Fili’s heat and Kili could feel his sense and his thought depart him. This was the rut coming on, that terrible thing he had feared since he had first learned what he now was.

He held on to his control as long as he could, but that slipped out of his fingers gracelessly the very moment Fili slid a fourth slick finger inside of him. From there, the only thing that Kili thought was of passion and sating himself, of grabbing Fili and pushing him back onto the bed so Kili could climb atop him and sink down onto his erect cock.

Each sensation was magnified, sparked a thousand times brighter than before. Kili moaned and rode Fili with an unyielding desire for it to never end. There was no caution, no hesitation. Kili gripped at Fili’s braids and held tight as though a steed, bucking forward and driving the pleasure deeper. 

Each touch burned.

Each moan from Fili’s luscious and perfect lips carved themselves into Kili’s mind, forever locked there. Every thrust into him left him feeling as if nothing else would ever make him feel complete if it were not Fili. His fingers tightened their grip as he rose to the climax, coming swiftly and without any warning.

He did not move, allowing Fili to frantically thrust inside him and keep up the rhythm that the heat brought on. The omega spirit wanted to be enveloped in sex and Kili was only too happy to provide. 

His ministrations of Fili’s hair turned gentler and he smiled down upon Fili as the haze from his mind began to slowly clear. Bit by bit, it receded and when Fili, too, came, Kili knew that they would have a chance to see through the madness for sex and see each other for who they were.

“Fili?” Kili whispered when Fili splayed his limbs outwards (Kili had yet to dismount, letting Fili sag within him and keep him feeling so very full). “Grunt once if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” Fili breathed out the words, the sound of them wispy and distant. “I’m wonderful. I’m yours,” he said with an exhausted-sounding laugh.

“Not officially until tomorrow,” Kili reminded him, arranging himself haphazardly so that he was sprawled over Fili’s body, curling into him like a young dog seeking affection. 

Fili stroked his fingers over Kili’s hair lightly. “I’ve been yours since you first looked upon me,” he corrected, breathing in deeply and slowly. “In the morning, back on the herbs,” he said. “I don’t like this damned feeling, but…” he slid his fingers slowly up Kili’s sides, pinning him to the bed. “We might as well spend the night exploring it.”

“My Fili,” Kili praised, grinning up at him. “Such a genius.”


	12. Chapter 12

Dwarves from every kingdom had come to see Fili and Kili marry. It made for a large reception and of the throngs of people (dwarves, men, and elves), they had to keep people outside for there was no room within the great halls for all that wanted to visit. There was a small list made by Fili and Kili of those who should be permitted entrance without a single question and many of them had stood close when the vows were exchanged.

The event everyone was waiting for had only just begun.

Great casks of wine and spirits had been passed around. The elves of Mirkwood had brought barrels of the stuff, to which Fili and Kili had been especially displeased, but Thranduil had merely smiled calmly and offered his _sincerest_ congratulations. The food was piping and helped along by Bombur’s recipes, given that both princes had developed an affinity for his food on the quest.

More than that, there was music in the halls of Erebor from silver-stringed harps and violins. The very best merriment filled each corner and the buoyant spirit of the guests was known to all. 

In the midst of it all, Bofur marveled at the restrained nature of the guests who had been permitted inside. Despite the presence of many alphas and omegas (and none of them bonded, at that), everyone seemed to be on their best behavior. “It’s a miracle,” he marveled, glancing over to where Bifur was sipping at his drink. “Or is it?”

Bifur shrugged, as if he didn’t know.

Bofur ought to have suspected some sort of caveat insisting all the guests have to take herbs, but maybe they had laced the food and the wine with it. Maybe he ought to stop being so suspicious and enjoy the evening. It had given him a chance to dress in his best and though he was missing his hat dearly, he also enjoyed the many fine looks he received given his flickering status between beta and omega.

It seemed as though he wasn’t the only one noticing the looks, though, and that other person didn’t seem half as pleased with them.

“They’ll use you up,” Nori warned, sitting down at Bofur’s side.

Nori was an attractive dwarf and had always had his pick of whomever he liked. His fingers were nimble and quick and his reputation as a thief gave him a slight air of danger. In his fineries of gold and amber, he glimmered in the candlelight and was every inch the desirable alpha that he was likely trying to appear to be.

“Are you on the lookout tonight?” Bofur asked, above the noise of a cheering crowd when Kili stole a kiss from Fili at the high table. 

“For what? I doubt anyone’s carrying anything valuable on ‘em tonight,” Nori obliviously replied. Bofur wondered if there wasn’t something to be said about the truth to the myth that dwarves were a bit thick when it came to being clever. “Oh, you mean…” Nori seemed to catch on fine enough. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

Bofur turned to glance at Bifur, finding his cousin had picked up and left sometime in the middle of this conversation. “I imagine you’re here to share in our servings of wine.”

“Nah,” Nori idly waved that notion away. “I’ve had plenty of my own.”

“So why are you here?”

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to attend a wedding and spend it all away from your date,” Nori said, indignant at the suggestion that Bofur thought so little of him. 

In truth, Bofur didn’t know what to think at this exact moment. Maybe he’d had a bit too much of wine to drink and was staring to dream up mad things coming out of the mouths of thieves. It was one of the only explanations for why Nori was talking about Bofur as though he was his _companion_ for the evening.

“Nori,” Bofur spluttered.

“Yes?”

“Are you suggesting that _I’m_ your date tonight?”

“I’d only ever settle for the finest omega,” Nori replied, plucking some of Bofur’s cheese from off his plate, popping it into his mouth without even asking for anything close to permission. “And the best beta. I like the dual switching thing, by the way,” Nori said, gesturing to Bofur as though he were a painting to be admired. “Unique.”

“Not really, seeing as Bifur says that one in ten dwarves are the same,” Bofur replied, mildly amused. “Is this you complimenting me?”

“...Is it working?”

“Mahal forgive me, but yes,” Bofur confessed. “C’mon. Let’s get a drink and steal a dance. I think that’s the only kind of wooing I can go for at this moment.”

Nori seemed well-inclined to do exactly that, hustling after Bofur as they made their way through the great hall in search of fine drink and music.

* * *

“I could not eat another bite,” Bilbo protested, both hands on his heaving stomach as he stared forlornly at the near-empty plate in front of him. “Though it seems a shame to ignore such fine foods in front of me.” He took a deep breath as if to bolster his courage and the depths of his stomach and picked up his fork and knife once more.

They (he and Thorin) had been seated at the head of the table with the rest of the family and all of Fili and Kili’s advisors. Well, Thorin’s advisors, Bilbo supposed, but they seemed to be flitting near the young princes like moths to a flame. Bilbo certainly couldn’t blame them. The princes practically glowed with happiness.

Bilbo made it through the rest of his food and it was with great pride that he set both utensils down. “Now, then,” he said, peering about. “Where’s the brandy?”

It was only after locating a tray of it passing that he noticed that Thorin had not spoken in some time. Bilbo looked his way cautiously, still wary of the King’s actions.

Since Bilbo had arrived, Thorin seemed constantly on the edge of losing control. True, Bilbo did what he could to help, but often it meant locking up in a small bedroom until Thorin could exert all the frustrations he kept bundled inside. Documents went without being signed or were delegated elsewhere, meetings were handed to others, and Thorin seemed to be constantly in a state of frustration by being surrounded by so many other alphas.

Bilbo sighed, pushing his plate away. “How are you feeling?” he asked, which was a question he should have begun with. Thorin had done so well through the ceremony, though he had ducked away with Balin at one point (surely to increase the dosage of his herbs) and he had even made it through most of the feast.

“Tense,” Thorin replied shortly. “I am surrounded by alphas and elves,” he hissed. “I want to tear something’s head off.”

“Do your nephews a favour and make sure it isn’t one of their better guests,” Bilbo joked, drinking half the brandy in a gulp as he realized precisely what was going to have to happen. “Right, then. On your feet,” he said, gesturing for Thorin to wander down the table to where Dis, Dwalin, and Fili were talking (as Kili was off with Tauriel on the dance floor, him peering all the way up at her).

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Bilbo said, stopping when they arrived at the group. “My Lady,” he said with a courteous bow. “Young prince,” he said to Fili with a proud smile. “Dwalin,” he finished, though there was a great deal of respect exuded. “Thorin has come to give his apologies and I must offer mine, too.”

“Why?” Fili asked, standing suddenly and turning so that his face was angled away from the crowd. “Are you hurt, Uncle?”

“Uncontrolled,” Thorin spoke the word quietly. “I fear Bilbo has the best idea. As little as I like the idea, I believe it safest if I were to retire away from the party before anything might be done that I, and you, will regret.”

“Are you sure?” Dis asked.

“I am,” Thorin said.

Bilbo peered up at Thorin with great worry, not wanting this to be the moment that he fell apart and caused a commotion at his family’s wedding. “I’ll look after him,” he assured, one hand on the small of Thorin’s back. It was a simple touch, through cloth, but the mere heat of a few fingertips seemed to calm Thorin stupendously. 

“Uncle,” Fili said, and the worry was clear on his face, too. It was clear on everyone’s. “When this is over, we will find something that will help you. There must be a solution.”

The trouble was, Bilbo thought, that between the underlying gold sickness that could translate to lusting after inappropriate omegas and the alpha’s fury, solutions were few and far between.

“I’m so sorry, Fili,” Thorin said, stepping forward to clasp his nephew by the cheeks as a proud father might. He kissed one, followed by the other where he lingered. Bilbo stayed on alert, in the event Fili’s omega scent caused Thorin to snap. “Know how proud I am, though. You have been true and loyal, bearing the heart of a warrior and a kind dwarf. You will serve as an excellent husband to Kili and, I think, the perfect king to the people.”

Bilbo cocked his head to the side, wondering what Thorin was on about.

“Thorin,” Fili pleaded quietly. “What will I tell Kili?”

“Tell him that I expect him to look at his good fortune and never take it for granted, as I did.” Thorin cupped Fili’s face a moment more before taking a step back as though he planned to drift coolly away. “Once again, I apologize that I cannot retain composure, but you do not want to spend your wedding night collecting your wild uncle.”

Fili did not protest, but he did not agree. 

Bilbo mustered up a smile. “I’ll make sure he’s well.”

“I’ll accompany you out,” Dwalin offered, giving Dis a quick squeeze of the hand. “I’ll be back after.” She nodded and gave Thorin a sympathetic look. Bilbo knew precisely how she felt.

How on earth were you supposed to continue on when someone you loved was in such a confounding and frustrating state, that was clearly hurting him and all those around him? Bilbo only wished he had an answer to that particular riddle.

* * *

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Kili asked, as Tauriel spun him around and around to the tune of harps and fiddles playing merry music. He craned his head up and Tauriel aided by lifting him in a great, sweeping motion. “They look cross! Fili looks like he’s about to be very upset.” The thought of Fili being upset on his wedding day distressed Kili in such a way that he greatly disliked.

When both of his booted feet hit the ground, he knew he could no longer tarry on the dance floor. He smoothed a hand over his shining blue tunic (in which sapphires and diamonds had been carefully sewn into the patterns). Grasping Tauriel’s hand, he watched as Thorin and Bilbo left with Dwalin at their side.

“Perhaps a matter has arisen that the King must tend to?” Tauriel suggested.

“Maybe,” Kili murmured, as dancing couples wove around them. He and Fili had shared two dances already and there would be another later to please the people, but he didn’t like the look on Fili’s face.

“Come,” Tauriel encouraged. “I think this is the best time to give my wedding gift to you and your Prince.” 

Kili gave a soft murmur of acknowledgement. While they had started to take herbs the morning after their long (and perfect) night, there were still lingering traces of that ancient need to put aside sensibilities and let his feelings navigate his actions for him. Tauriel’s suggestion of accepting her gift would give them time away.

“I’ll fetch Fili,” he said, watching as Tauriel gracefully walked through the crowd to a quieter corner. Kili smiled to the guests as he passed, bowing to dignitaries and friends alike, but the last few steps up to the dais where the long table held were quick. He slid into the chair next to Fili with speed and grace, taking one of his hands into both his own and laying a kiss to every knuckle. “Your Grace,” Kili drew out the words teasingly.

“Stop it, you menace,” Fili replied, but he was grinning. “What is it?”

“You looked a bit distraught.”

“Thorin had to leave,” Fili said with a sigh. He leaned over, away from where Dis could hear them. “He’s not holding up very well and he’s saying odd things.” Fili shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it.”

“No, neither do I,” Kili murmured. He tugged on Fili’s hand, trying to get him up from his seat. “Come! Tauriel is going to present her gift to us and I think it’ll be good to get you out of the front and centre. You don’t always have to be in people’s line of sight. You deserve a break, too,” he insisted, keeping one arm slung around Fili’s shoulders as he led him to where Tauriel was waiting.

She bowed and they bowed in turn (in tandem) and it seemed almost that they had been practicing all their lives to do things together. 

“Prince Fili,” she greeted with respect heavy in her words. “I hoped to bear this gift to you in private.”

Fili exchanged a look with Kili, who had no manner of knowing what she planned to give them. The fact that she wanted to do it away from prying eyes was a bit of an odd thing, but how embarrassing could it ...

... be.

Kili blinked when she brought out the luminescent vial of bright liquid, beautiful to the degree that Kili had never seen before in his life. It was magnificent and he had not the words to adequately praise it. He also had no manner of knowing what it was meant to do, so he continued to stare at it, in awe that such a beautiful thing could belong to them. 

Tauriel seemed well-pleased to have presented them with such a thing. “I thought to bring you aside because it is a very private gift.” She turned to Fili, pressing it firmly into his palm. “It is for you.”

“For us, surely,” Fili replied.

“For the both of you, but for you to mandate its’ use,” she said. “It is life itself. I know that the omega spirits bear life, but this liquid will ensure it when you want it. It is very persuasive,” she continued with a fond smile. “Take it, treasure it, and hold it dear to your heart.”

Fili stared at the vial as though it might burn through his palm, but Kili’s eyes had widened a great deal. True, people had mentioned what was possible, but they had only just been married and been through their first heat.

Why did people seem to think they needed to produce heirs, already? Thorin could still do that, after all. He wasn’t so far around the bend that it was out of the question.

“Tauriel, milady,” Fili murmured. “Your generosity is unparalleled. Thank you,” he said, kissing her palm. “Thank you very much, many times over.”

“And do not tell Thranduil I gave it to you,” Tauriel added with a mischievous smile. “He would not be pleased to discover one more treasure from his halls missing.” 

She bowed once more and took her leave.

Kili watched her go, still enthralled and delighted with the fact that they had taken her as a friend. “Fili, what an honoured gift!” he remarked, stunned and trying to paw at it, only to be rebuffed by Fili keeping it away from him. “I won’t break it, I want to see it. It gleams like the Arkenstone,” he marvelled.

“If it is truly an aid to give life, it must be every inch as precious,” Fili said, finally glancing up from his continuous inspection of the vial. “We must ensure we lock this up very carefully and ensure it is safe. The very last thing we need is some thief or brigand making away with this, not before we’ve had a chance to use it ourselves.”

Having never thought about being a father himself, Kili found himself struck a bit dumb. It was true that he had always enjoyed the thought of children, but he had never truly thought of what they might be like – especially not his and Fili’s children. The picture in his mind was bright and near perfect and it made Kili wish to hoard their gift ever the more.

“Not too soon, though,” he made sure to clarify.

He might be eager, but he wasn’t _that_ eager.

“No,” Fili agreed, tucking away the vial in his tunic and leading Kili back to dance. “We have a marriage to settle into first, prince and prince consort. Prince twice-over,” Fili marvelled. “You do have a talent.”

“Then allow me to show you why it pales in light of the prince I married,” Kili replied with a sharp tongue and a bright smile, leading Fili onwards into their life together.


	13. Chapter 13

For two hours now, negotiations had continued in the most monotonous of veins. The topics were necessary, but drained on with malingering and a terrible indecision that plucked at Thorin’s patience. They spoke of trade and the crops of the season. They discussed monotonous topics until Thorin felt as though his ears would bleed.

He had been encouraged to come to this meeting by Bilbo, who said he looked finer than he had in days. “And besides,” Bilbo had pointed out, “you’ve been ignoring your duties for how long, now? The people need to see their king.”

Thorin could not disagree with such wise thoughts.

And yet, now that he had been here for hours and his patience slowly fettered away, he thought perhaps there was a protest to be had after all. The alpha scents in the room (unchecked by herbs, let to spill free) were inhaled with every deep breath and Thorin felt as though he was being challenged by merely remaining there. 

“...so if we offer the men of Dale one more shipment of weapons a month, they have guaranteed us in turn..”

The clerk’s voice droned on with no mercy or end in sight.

Thorin’s attention dwindled until it was only his intake and output of breath that he could focus on. The breath rattled on its’ way in and drowned on the way out. Every other voice in the room quickly fell away as he paid attention to nothing more than his breathing. 

In, then out.

In, and with that deep breath in, he inhaled a sharp sense of an alpha’s challenge, seemingly meant for him and him alone. His attention snapped from the calm meditation that Balin had suggested he used and searched the room for the alpha that dared to challenge a king. It was a dwarf of Dain’s, one of the Iron Hills nobles that had secured a place at their table through means of buying his way there.

He had no honour, he held no dignity.

And now he dared to stare upon Thorin, King Under the Mountain and challenge him?

Thorin rose to his feet as though a dragon bursting forth from the ashes. His hands slammed down upon the table and he made eye contact across the room with the would-be-usurper, only barely noticing that Dwalin seemed eager to leave the room at the first sign of such a skirmish.

“You!” Thorin boomed.

“Thorin,” Balin quietly hissed. “Not now.”

There was no sense to be had. Thorin could see a red ring through his vision (and what he did not know was that many others saw it too, this mark of the devil personified in Thorin). His fingers turned more pointed, as if clawed, and though some panic lingered deep in Thorin’s mind, he buried it as he endured the urge to rip his enemy apart.

_His blood will be mine_.

And then, something more nefarious whispered its way into his thoughts.

_His body will be mine. Even his soul_.

He climbed atop the table, perched on all fours as though the beast spirit within him had burst through the dam’s walls and made itself perfectly clear. Thorin jumped down to his feet, stalking across the room with his eyes blazing red and his fingernails pointed. The alpha before him no longer looked so confident that he would win the challenge and it brought Thorin’s blood up, made him hungry and angry and prideful. He beckoned the other dwarf nearer, sliding into the rut with the ease in which prolonging something had only brought it closer.

“Please,” the dwarf begged.

If Thorin were in his right mind, he would know that his name was Tieran and that he had many friends in the agricultural fields that surrounded them. He was an envoy to them, but Thorin did not care about that.

One clawed fingernail was poked against Tieran’s chest. “Again,” rumbled Thorin, his voice laced with hell and damnation.

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Please don’t take me, don’t hurt me, it was a mistake, I made a mistake, I...”

“Thorin Oakenshield!” Through the crowd and the pleading came a booming, authoritative voice. It cut through Thorin’s diminished mind and brought him to an anchor in the ground. When he blinked, the red haze vanished and his fingernails retracted as though hearing his true name had reminded him that he was no beast.

Warily, Thorin turned to find Dwalin accompanied by Bilbo Baggins in the doorway, Dis lurking behind them.

“What have you done?” she asked frightfully. 

“I must be imprisoned,” Thorin said. He wished to make it an order, but did not trust himself. “Take me to the dungeons, lock me up! Do not let me out, no matter how fine my words may be.”

Uncertainty abounded in the room, but some dwarves knew an opportunity when they saw it. 

“You heard him,” said Dain. “He’s a menace to his own kind. Lock him up.”

Dwalin cut his way in between Dain and Thorin, but his glare was levelled on Dain. “You would do well to remember that Thorin isn’t the only alpha in this room,” Dwalin very quietly informed Dain (and Thorin could hear him, given his proximity). “Now, imagine you were King and under the constant challenge of others, without a mate because Thorin wouldn’t marry for anything but love. Imagine that and then tell me you would be so quick to claim you could control yourself.” Dwalin’s smile was ugly, now. “You were at the wedding, Dain. Even if you lock Thorin away, you can’t do away with his line.”

“I don’t want his throne,” Dain hissed. “Merely his respect. He dares to threaten _my kin_ , son of Fundin. You know the disrespect such an act carries.”

“And I ask that I be taken to the dungeons,” Thorin cut in, trying to stop another fight trying to grow off the one he had begun. He searched wildly for Bilbo, settling when he made eye contact with the hobbit. “Will you come with me?”

“I’ll make sure you don’t get too lonely,” Bilbo assured with a brittle smile that spoke of his heartbreak at having to watch this before his eyes. “You heard your king, did you not? I believe it’s time to arrest him.”

It was clear to Thorin that he was feared, even now. 

“Dwalin,” Thorin summoned quietly. “Place me in shackles.”

It seemed that he could still rely on his old lieutenant. Thorin felt the bite of hard iron against his wrists and turned to look at his cabinet for what he felt might be the last time. How many outbursts would one king be allowed? How close to the edge of madness would he be permitted to dance before he fell off into the abyss forever?

He feared he already knew the answer as they carted him off, placing him in a cell furthest from the other criminals and ensuring he had food and the small comforts that a king could wish for.

“You do not need to stay with me night and day,” Thorin said quietly to Bilbo once he had been settled in and the shackles had been removed. He paced the cell in even turns, aware that he felt much calmer in Bilbo’s presence.

He also knew that he had already decided upon a solution.

It was simply the most heartbreaking and difficult solution that he could think of and did not like to linger on the idea for very long. Thorin slumped against the bars that separated himself from Bilbo. 

“I am a monster.”

“No, you are a dwarf,” Bilbo corrected. “And you have made mistakes, but we will find a way to fix them.”

Thorin knew the way.

He simply could not bear to say it out loud.

* * *

“He has been locked up for near a week,” Fili protested wildly, pacing the tiled floor of the King’s chambers, where the Durin line and their closest friends had been summoned to wait for Thorin’s release. “How can we have done such a thing to him? He does not deserve this,” he swiftly protested.

Kili, nearby, was on the edge of his seat precariously, as though any single affront against Fili would have him at his side and raining down great terror. Since the wedding, Fili had seen Kili’s possessiveness climb and though he never turned it outward, it had left many a mark on Fili’s skin after they tousled under the sheets.

“Did he say what this was about?” Dis murmured to Balin.

“Only that he needed to speak with us all.”

Dwalin and Bilbo had gone to fetch Thorin and to bring this meeting to a start. Fili rose to his feet and breathed in sharply when he saw how Thorin looked. He had been in the jail cell for a week since the incident at the meeting. His hair was wild and unkempt and his clothes held a faint smell of sick.

Fili hated the pity he felt for his uncle, for the dwarf before him was previously the strongest person he knew. 

“You wanted to speak to us?” Fili asked, watching as Kili carefully took his time winding across the room to sit down beside Fili, as though possessive and watchful. “Are you all right, Uncle?”

“I fear I have not been for some time and have been too stubborn to acknowledge it.”

No one said anything, though Fili could practically feel the strain of the silence in the room. He reached over to press a hand to Kili’s, trying to stem his words. It was in this stretch that Fili’s hand came into contact with the ring on Kili’s hand, reminding him of the vows that they had taken. He flushed, curling his fingers around Kili’s and watching Thorin carefully

Thorin, though, had not taken his eyes off of Fili the whole time.

“Thorin has something he’d like to tell all of you,” Bilbo spoke up.

“That I would like to ask,” Thorin clarified.

“What is it?” Fili asked, utterly at a loss as to what this was about.

“I’m leaving for the Shire in several days time,” Bilbo spoke up when the silence grew awkward and uncomfortable. Fili did not know what that had to do with a question that had to be asked of them or something that must be told, but he listened cautiously. “And when I go, Thorin will come with me.”

“Good,” Dwalin harrumphed. “It’s not safe to go without an escort.”

Thorin still stood there with his head mildly bowed lower, looking at Fili with great apology. 

It was at that very moment that Fili understood why Thorin looked at him like that. “He’s not going to accompany Bilbo to the Shire,” Fili said, heart beating faster as fear began to overtake him. Kili seemed to sense it and drew closer. “He’s going there to stay. He’s leaving the Kingdom and his throne.”

_To me_ , Fili didn’t say.

“I cannot control my ruts and it has become readily clear that I am a monster when I allow myself to truly give in to the beast,” Thorin said, calm as he spoke about the plans to change their lives completely. “Bilbo helps a great deal. We spoke while I was in the cell and decided that it would be safest for us to return to the Shire where I will live with him.”

“Thorin,” Dis murmured, broken-hearted by the sound of her voice. “You would be so far away.”

“I would not bring disrespect on the line of Durin,” Thorin corrected, turning to look at Fili. He crossed the room to clasp his cheeks as a fond uncle would. “And they will be occupied with their new king.”

Fili did not know what to say.

“Thorin,” was all he could eke out.

“I will remain to bestow the royal honours upon Bifur as we had discussed,” Thorin said, gesturing to Balin. He had moved away already and made it seem as if the discussion was complete and nothing could change his mind. “And during that ceremony, we will tell the people that Fili will ascend to accept the crown of king, with Kili as his consort.”

“I’m not ready,” Fili said, when he could think of no better argument.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t even true. Balin and Dwalin both cut him down with a disbelieving look. He had been ready since he was but fifty and now that he had another sixty years of practice, he could not honestly say that he was not ready to be a king. In ways, he had already been acting the role with Thorin’s reduced presence in council and on the throne.

Still, he must try anything he could think of in order to get Thorin to stay.

“Uncle,” Kili said plaintively. “Do you really have to leave us?”

“You will have your own family one day,” Thorin said. “And the Shire is not the West. You will come and visit and I will be calmer for the distance from the other alphas. The strain of knowing my true heart is not an omega will rest easy in the Shire, I think. Besides, I’m half the dwarf you are, Fili. Gold sickness never invaded your heart; you were too busy paying attention to what was important. Your family and your place with them.”

Thorin turned to look at Bilbo, who had been lurking near the door as if he didn’t belong in this conversation.

“I know where I belong, now.”

Fili breathed in deeply, trying to work past the panic of the news. “And so I will be king?”

“And you will do a fine job of it,” Thorin said knowingly. “Kili will help and if ever in doubt, do exactly as I have done for thirty years.” He smirked, that warmth making Thorin come alive as he had not in ages. “Rely on Balin.”

“Wise words,” Balin agreed. “Were it not for Thorin’s utter ineptness, I would be halfway to Moria to be my own ruler.”

“Do not go so quickly,” Fili was quick to plead. “I am sure I will need considerable help.”

“No,” Kili breathed out warmly against Fili’s neck. “You’ll be perfect.”

Fili still stared at Thorin with accusation thick in his eyes. He did not want to be so blatantly accusatory, but he felt as though he had been pushed from the highest ledge and was now expected to soar. It did not matter that he could or could not do it, he hadn’t expected this to happen for decades – potentially never.

“You are truly going to leave?”

“I will always need someone to deliver herbs to me,” Thorin said. “Fili, do not fret so. You will be king and you will have those who love you and trust you at your side. The dwarves of Erebor already believe you to be a fine ruler. I would not leave unless I was assured of such a thing.”

Fili squeezes Kili’s hand a little tighter than before, still coming to grips with the notion that they were going to be the ruling couple.

“And if it all goes terribly?”

“I will still be in the Shire for advice,” Thorin said. “However, it won’t go poorly. In fact, I’m sure it will go better.”

Thorin’s gaze flickered over to Kili. It was in looking at his other nephew that he seemed to pick up on the exact thing to say that would assure him of victory.

“You will not let Kili down,” said Thorin. “And you will not let Erebor down.”

Fili shook his head, aware that Thorin had hit the precise target he meant to. It was a challenge and a dare and was not one that Fili would lightly let go by. He would do precisely as he had been demanded because Thorin knew that Fili would not fail Kili, of all people. He nodded, swallowing back any further protests, and knew that he must only focus on the kingdom.

No, that wasn’t right.

He would look to Kili to guide him, to his advisors to give him the correct way, and his family and friends to keep him grounded.

“We will visit you,” Fili warned.

“I am well aware,” Thorin replied with a huff of bemusement. “I could not rid myself of the both of you if I tried.”

Perhaps that was the only thing keeping Fili from falling apart. True, things would change, but they would not be irreparably broken. Still, he was terrified and clung to that because he knew that he would not let anyone down, not when he still felt as though he had a great deal to live up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And to those of you who guessed what was coming, I have baked delicious cookies for you! Enjoy!


	14. Chapter 14

It had been three months since Thorin and Bilbo had left for the Shire with wagons teeming with provisions in their wake. Thorin had taken herbs enough to last him half a lifetime, but insisted that new deliveries be sent just in case. In those three months, Fili had ensured that he and Kili had time to themselves to properly appreciate being a newlywedded couple without a kingdom looming over their heads.

They had only gone to Esgaroth, which hadn’t been terribly romantic, but it had been private. That had been Fili’s request. Kili had only wanted to gaze upon the stars and feast on great mead and food. 

It had been a pleasant week away from Erebor, but they had both yearned to come back to the home that they had spent so long away from. 

“This is nothing what I expected,” Fili complained, barely glancing up from the tousled bedsheets. Kili had decided to splay his body atop Fili’s, legs tangled together as they went over the daily missives from the seven kingdoms. “There’s so much paperwork.”

“I wonder if Thorin went into a rut every time he got bored,” Kili joked, signing a document and setting it aside in the pile of ‘have been dealt with’ items. “I wouldn’t complain. It’d mean I got to pin you down under me and let my knot expand in you…” He breathed heavy as he moved his hand up Fili’s chest, as if trying to distract him from his paperwork. “Do you think he will ever want an omega?”

“I think Bilbo would have his head,” Fili scoffed. “Inner spirits or not.” He stretched for Bifur’s latest receipt describing the amount and type of herbs being sent out to dwarves. “Bifur’s shipment is a bit lower than usual. We should do some more sessions to educate everyone on the importance of even a small dosage,” he murmured, tapping his quill to the page.

“Fili,” Kili complained. “We were supposed to be having a lazy lie-in.”

“We are!”

“We’re doing paperwork,” Kili said, halfway to whining. Fili shot Kili a greatly amused look as he went one step further and rose from the trap he had been laid under. “Fili,” Kili protested heatedly. “And now you’re dressing? Sometimes I wish that I could figure out how to turn on the omega charm in me while triggering your alpha side,” he complained. “See how you like it when you’re a slave to...”

“To your well devoted husband?” Fili suggested. “Balin’s coming for a tour around the developments and then I’m returning to you.” Tugging on his belt, he quickly made himself presentable, though perhaps not as kingly as people would expect. 

It had been a point of pride to him that people saw him as a modest king who would listen to his people. With Kili tempering his wayward heats, he often had control and had even governed through one incident – the herbs keeping his scent dull enough so that it merely pleased people rather than drove them wild. 

Fili affixed the royal beads in his hair, foregoing the crown, and tipped Kili’s sulken-ridden face up from where he stared down.

“An hour,” Fili insisted. “I will be gone for but an hour and then I am all yours, once the paperwork is complete.” It seemed to buoy Kili some, given how he looked up with hope and something akin to delight. Worryingly, there was also a flicker of mischief that belied a nefarious plan the likes of which only his brother could conceive.

As always, precisely on schedule, three knocks came at the door.

“Tell Balin, next time, that he deserves a morning off,” Kili said grumpily, but he had already turned to the trade documents from Mirkwood, beginning to pore over them in search of what the envoys required and asked. “More than that, _we_ deserve it.”

“You spent a week after the wedding spending your deserved rewards,” Fili pointed out, opening the door in order to put a firm end to the conversation.

The moment Balin saw Fili, he bowed. As always, Fili hoisted him back to his feet. 

“None of that.”

“It’s customary,” Balin said, steadfastly avoiding where his sightlines led him – which was to a very disheveled and half-clothed dwarf in bed. Kili was nothing like Fili when it came to the proper protocols to follow and made an eager habit out of unnerving those who dared to enter their chambers.

Fili hated the notion of what was customary and what was not. “We are alone, Balin. I don’t want you to bow to me when it’s only us.” He turned to give Kili a stern look, but found himself somewhat off-kilter when the picture that Kili presented was utterly entrancing beyond Fili’s wildest expectations. His hair was all about his face and the grey flecks in Kili’s ever-growing beard called for Fili to run his fingers through it.

He cleared his throat hurriedly and turned to Balin. “Shall we begin?” he eked out, hoping he did not sound terribly strained, though he felt it. 

He wanted to return back to Kili as soon as it was possible. 

Balin let Fili lead as he did every morning and as every morning, he had a notebook in his hands with many points to check off. “Bifur says his raw materials will suitably cover the next three orders of herbs, though he’d like some more weeds and medicinal plants. He’s going to try some new mixes.”

Fili glanced down the hall as they walked. “Make sure he has it, spend whatever gold you require.”

Balin checked off the task with aplomb. “They’ve put the finishing touches on the sparring rooms. Dwalin has volunteered to lead the first session.” This, too, had been Fili’s idea after seeing what the madness had done to Thorin. 

There were many an unbonded alpha in Erebor and there would never be enough omegas, which meant that action would have to be taken. They would succumb to madness in the search. Fili had sought a different option. He had banded together many of the stronger alphas he knew and proposed an idea to them that would permit them to spend their energy without harming anyone. This was how it came to be that the sparring rooms were built so that alphas could spend their rut challenging one another and using violence as a coping mechanism.

“And all who enter must give permission and acknowledge that anything might happen,” Fili clarified. 

“Dwalin will ensure it. I believe your lady mother is helping in the task, as well.”

Fili smiled ruefully, knowing that she would be happy to do such a thing. “Next?”

Balin led him onwards through the topics of the day. They rarely differed, but Fili appreciated having the daily check-in to ensure he was not missing anything. They covered everything and it was signed on paper before being brought to an appointed and elected council to add or argue. All in all, it was a system that worked for them. 

“Lastly, your day of birth approaches,” Balin said. “Will you be wanting a party?”

“Certainly not, but I fear I have no choice,” Fili replied warmly. “Confer with Kili. I’m sure he’s already put together many an idea.”

They had circled the royal halls and now returned outside the royal chamber. Fili had always put his responsibilities first, but he wavered somewhat when he knew what awaited him behind those great oak doors. 

“As always, Balin, thank you,” Fili said, affording to him one of the bows he often said he did not require. Still, he enjoyed how it made him feel like a boy again even though the years had long passed since he could place a claim anywhere near such a thing. He stood with his back at the door for a long moment, waiting until Balin had truly left the hallway before he pivoted and drew open both heavy doors at once. “Kili, I’m...”

His words were swiftly stolen from him when he saw that Kili had managed to strip down to utterly nothing and lay with his limbs spread-eagle upon the bed. 

And, wafting Fili’s way, was the distinct omega smell that he had come to covet – a hint of spice and the smell of carved wood and fresh grass.

“What are you doing?” Fili asked with a joyous laugh, locking the door firmly behind him to ensure that no one walked in on their king and his consort in the midst of something that would surely have the whole kingdom in arms at the scandal of it all. 

The process of Fili stripping off each piece of clothing was quick and soon he had not a shred of fabric upon him, not a trace of precious jewels. Soon, he stood at the foot of the bed, pressing his palms to the wooden posts of the bed as he leaned in.

“Well?” Fili offered.

As though a torch being snuffed out, the omega smell was gone, replaced by Kili’s usual alpha pheromones as he crawled forward on all fours. “I want to knot you. It felt so good the last time, will you please let me do it again?” Fili could barely argue as it had felt completely incredible. It had been as if he had been made whole after so long apart. 

Besides, he had never been able to deny Kili anything.

He knelt on the edge of the bed, taking his time to crawl down and tug Kili atop him, those royal braids that Kili had finally put into his hair brushing over Fili’s bare chest. They had worked out each other’s greatest likes and weaknesses and now used them never for sinister purpose, but always to bring each other to happiness. 

Fili had been keeping oils in their bedside drawers ever since the wedding and now he felt as though he had a solid rhythm of it. He enjoyed preparing himself, in great part because of the look it coaxed forth on Kili’s face and this was no different. While Fili slipped his slick fingers inside himself, he watched as Kili looked on reverently, as though he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. 

“You always like this,” Fili accused fondly, slipping into that wave of desire that pulsed through him. While Kili’s presence stemmed the heats, it also enflamed them when the mood struck him correctly. Impatient and eager, Kili did not betray his patience. He continued to wait for Fili to finish, though a slip of a keening whimper escaped. “Hold,” Fili said quietly, with great firmness.

“You’re too slow!” Kili barked. “Let me...”

“Hold!” Fili barked, a little stronger as he twisted his fingers and sank back into the bedding with a sated and content sigh, knowing that it was not enough. His body wanted its’ alpha and Kili was eager to indulge.

Finally, Fili felt as though he wished to cede his control. 

“Now?” Kili asked frantically, as if sensing the shift in the air.

“Now,” Fili agreed warmly, bowled back by the kiss Kili placed on his lips. It was possessive and dear, Kili’s hand cupping Fili’s cheeks and pressing him down into the bed as he lost himself in the kiss. Fili always felt an overwhelming sense of joy and delight when Kili kissed him with his whole being, as though it was to be his last act on earth.

For all of Kili’s impatience, he lazily spent a great deal of time kissing Fili, for which he was both grateful and frustrated.

“Balin is going to...” Kili nipped at his lower lip. “...come back soon for the meetings...” Kili stroked Fili’s length with his rough palm. “...don’t have that much time,” he exhaled the words in a rush, sinking his forehead against Kili’s shoulder.

“So you want...?”

Blasted dwarf. Confounded idiot, Fili stared in amazement at Kili’s perfectly innocent expression and how he seemed to be utterly blameless in making Fili beg for what Kili had previously been so eager for.

“Beg, Fili,” Kili commanded, his tone coy and superior. There were very few instances in which Kili acted as the alpha that he was, but it was often behind locked doors and when they were in the midst of their nightly (and sometimes daily and morning and during lunch breaks and under tables) activities that he let that part of him out. “I won’t touch you until you beg for me.”

It was a lie. Kili wanted to touch him as desperately as anyone had ever wanted to touch anything, but Fili enjoyed giving in to these demands. They were harmless and they filled him with the abject and firm pleasure of giving his alpha what he wanted.

“Please,” he began, his tone hoarse and teasing. “I want you.”

“How much?” Kili challenged.

“I want you more than gold, silver, gems...” Fili positioned himself so that he sat on his knees, leaning his weight back on his ankles so that his erection was the centre of Kili’s attention. “I want you to touch me until I burn with you. I want you to mark me,” he said seriously. “As you do each time, so that every alpha I come in contact with knows one thing.”

“What one thing?”

“The King of Erebor will suffer no alphas besides his own.”

Kili grinned broadly, kissing Fili triumphantly. “You do suffer me very well.”

“I should,” Fili replied, allowing Kili to lie him back on the bed and position him as he liked (lifting Fili’s leg over his shoulder, spreading his thighs wider) before he sank his way into Fili. “I’ve practiced, you know.”

Kili grunted his reply, falling into the pleasure of being surrounded by Fili’s warmth. Fili, too, could scarcely think when he was filled with Kili like this. They faced each other, but words had been stripped of their minds as pleasure dominated. Kili buried his face in Fili’s neck, kissing and sucking a mark into the skin that was a public display of precisely who the King belonged to.

When people even glanced at it, Fili felt himself utterly awash with pride and recollection as to how he collected the mark.

“Yes?” Kili breathed out as he thrust deeper, his knot beginning to form. It stretched Fili and had hurt in the beginning, but his body was now accustomed to it. Kili had also mastered the very art of finding the precise spot in which allowing his knot to develop would send Fili into the most rapturous waves of pleasure.

There was likely a name for it, but Fili had no care for names or thoughts or words or _anything_ when Kili made him feel this good.

“Oh, Kili,” Fili exhaled reverently, mouthing the words when he felt he could not even speak. “Kili, Kili, _Kili_.” Quieter and quieter until there was nothing but the laboured breaths he let out when he remembered to, Fili felt nothing but the overwhelming sensation of being full and loved and tumbled.

Mahal help him, he was lost and Kili had done it again.

Fili could always tell when Kili was close because the knot seemed to vibrate as Kili’s whole body trembled. He fought through the haze and latched onto one word, one simple word that he could give to Kili.

“Always,” he whispered.

It was the promise that Kili could always have this, would always have this, and it did the trick neatly. Kili let himself go, spilling inside Fili and sagging down on him. Fili, having been doing this for some time with Kili, had a habit of coming the moment Kili did, as if echoing him and he slumped lazily on the bedsheets with Kili still filling him up with his knot.

Arms above his head, hair wild, and his braids needing attention, Fili did not want to move and Kili did not seem pressed to help him in that task.

Soon, Balin would return with breakfast and new tasks for the day.

Fili would have to act as King and Kili would do his duties as consort, but they still had these moments in between in which nothing of the outside world could touch them.

“I love you very much,” Fili murmured, struck by the worry that he did not say the words enough. “I hope you know that.”

“You have never been remiss in showing me with your words and actions,” Kili promised, his kiss lazy as he brushed it over Fili’s temple. He wrapped his arms around Fili to try and steer him back to bed. “Sleep?” he pleaded.

“Work,” Fili countered.

Kili let out a frustrated groan. “Why can’t we abdicate too?”

“Because, dear Kili,” Fili said smugly. “Secretly, you love ruling.”

“As do you,” Kili countered, his eyes half-open as he curled into Fili as if a pillow. “That means nothing now. Sleep,” he said, firmer and with more conviction this time. “We’re going to sleep.”

Apparently, they were going to sleep. Fili smiled fondly and settled into Kili’s touch.

He could think of worse mornings.


	15. Chapter 15

“Thorin,” Bilbo shouted from where he had been cleaning up mud _again_ and had needed to move a pair of dwarven boots _again_. He glanced to young Frodo, who was watching Bilbo with a sympathetic smile. “See what your Uncle does?” he challenged. “I ought to throw him back into the mines of Erebor and have his head.”

“It’s only a bit of mud, Bilbo,” Frodo protested.

“It’s only a bit of mud now, but you know what I’ll get when I challenge him with it? He’ll make excuses! He’ll excuse himself up and down, saying he was in a rut when he did it and he didn’t have the presence of mind to notice.”

Frodo brought a hand to his lips to hide his smile.

In truth, Bilbo was simply happy to see him smiling again. He had been quite dismally depressed since his parents’ death and though both Bilbo and Thorin had done their best to coax him out of his shell, only time would slowly erase the weary mark left by grief. Thorin’s moods had greatly diminished in the five years he’d spent in the Shire with Bilbo and Frodo’s addition to Bag End had helped to temper him.

In the dark of the night, Thorin often confessed that it was akin to having Fili and Kili as children underfoot again. “Though Frodo is much better behaved than the two of them had ever been,” Thorin opined as he brushed slow, whisker-thick kisses to Bilbo’s neck. 

Now, though, there was mud to be cleaned up and Thorin was conveniently missing. 

They had heard reports of dwarves on the outskirts of the Shire. Thorin had gone out to scout and see whether they were friend or simply visiting travellers. The paths had grown somewhat more dangerous if you were a novice, but to those who knew the roads as well as one knew the back of their hand, they remained easy.

“I’ve checked the stores as you’ve asked, Uncle,” Frodo said dutifully. “We’ve plenty of food.”

Bilbo had been wary of unexpected visitors and had thought ahead, this time. “Good,” he said, finishing with the last of the mud. “Excellent work, Frodo,” he praised, ruffling his hair. “Now, what do you say we take a bit of a walk,” he suggested, hefting up his walking stick and gesturing to the door, “and see where your Uncle Thorin has found himself?”

Frodo practically radiated happiness at the suggestion. “I’ll run and get my coat.”

“There is no need to go anywhere.”

As if he had heard of their plans and wished to render them useless, Thorin pried open the front door, peeking inside.

“Mind your feet,” Bilbo said archly. “I just cleaned up every trace of mud you brought in from your last trip out to the market.”

“If it is mud that concerns you, then you had best lay out a mat,” Thorin said, opening the door wider.

There, before Bilbo’s eyes for the first time in five years, stood Fili and Kili. 

True, they were not as young as they had been the first time they arrived in tandem on his doorstep like this, but they were the same boys. Had they not all grown older as time wore on? Kili’s beard had grown longer, even in the five years since they had since he had been seen. He wore matching beads to Fili’s and their hair was swept in functional braids, trailing the backs of their royal wear.

“Hello,” Bilbo laughed, a bit shaky for the sight of them. “Don’t you dare track mud,” he warned, pointing a finger at the both of them and not minding for a moment that he was scolding the King of Erebor and his consort.

He’d never been able to get the stain out from the last time, though.

Fili gave Kili a considerate look. “You take her shoes off, then.”

Kili’s whole face fell. “Me? You know she kicks!”

“Hence the bruise I have on my cheek,” Fili patiently replied as Bilbo watched the two of them curiously, unsure what the discussion regarded. “Take her boots off or Bilbo’s going to have your head.” Kili went off muttering behind them to where their escort stood and waited while Fili turned his attention to Frodo. “Hello young Mr. Baggins! The last time I saw you, you were very small indeed.”

“I have grown,” Frodo said proudly. “Uncle Thorin says it is in leaps and bounds and I shall be the tallest hobbit he has ever seen.”

An uncle’s pride, truly, thought Bilbo. “Where has Kili gone?” he asked, of both Fili and Thorin – perhaps more towards Thorin who wore a secretive smile upon his face as though he was deliberately not telling Bilbo a key piece of information. Thorin was too blastedly good at keeping a secret and Bilbo patience could not take it.

“Shall we head inside?” Fili suggested, prying off his calf-leather gloves and making a show of ensuring his mud-coated boots were off before he even managed to cross the threshold. He set them tidily aside, waiting patiently as he looked down the way.

Bilbo squinted (his eyesight was getting appalling) and found that Kili toted a wriggling bit of a thing in his arms as he came back up the winding pathway to the house. It was only when he set the thing down that Bilbo realized he stared upon a young dwarf maid.

“Hello,” she greeted brightly, bowing as she had no doubt been taught to do by countless advisors. “Dis the Second, at your service.”

Fili watched as though he wished to step forward and correct some small piece of etiquette, but allowed the young girl to right herself. Her hair shone brilliant gold, though her eyes were the exact shade of Kili’s and she bore a bit of fuzz on her cheeks, but not much. She was practically vibrating with energy, but forced herself to stand still. 

“Boots off, Dee?” Fili checked.

“Yes, Papa,” she dutifully replied. 

“No breaking anything?”

“Of course.”

“Then off you go,” Fili lightly tapped her on the shoulder. “Frodo, if you wouldn’t mind...?”

“I’ll watch her,” Frodo promised, walking after the burst of energy that Dis had been, flying through the house wildly as if this new domain must be mapped. 

Bilbo was stunned, but pleased. He hadn’t expected a child this soon and not one so old (by dwarf standards, she of course was yet young, but to Bilbo it was amazing how much had changed). He gestured for the rest of the party to enter, knowing that there was much to be talked about and doing so on the doorstep was a terribly rude thing for a host to do. 

“In! Come in, come in,” Bilbo greeted warmly. “I don’t mind you tarrying on my front step as every dwarf more, Lobelia stops wanting Bag End quite so badly, but I’ve made a nice lunch and I think there is much to discuss.”

He received no argument from his suggestion. Coats were hung up, boots were properly tucked away, and Kili went to deliver Dis’ playthings (dolls, books, and small crafts) to her before joining the rest of them at the table. Bilbo was steeping the tea while Thorin sliced cheese.

“I must confess,” Thorin said, “you nearly gave me a heart attack when I went to check the borders and found Kili with your daughter and Fili nowhere in sight.”

“Where had you gone?” asked Bilbo.

“She dropped some of her carvings off the pony a ways back,” Fili explained, adding honey to his tea with a grateful smile in Bilbo’s direction. “She cries the likes of which I have not heard since Kili was a babe. She greatly resembles his disposition,” Fili said and though Kili looked ready to argue, he held his tongue. “She has energy to spare and wishes to explore all of Erebor and beyond. We fear her beard will come in as slowly as Kili’s, too, but she has no care for such a thing. At the moment, Tauriel has been teaching her the basics of archery and I believe she is our daughter’s hero. I would not be surprised if she tries to pluck out any hair on her face to be similar to her.”

Bilbo shook his head, marvelling at the newness. “How old?”

“Three and some months,” Fili replied. “Young, yes, but we did not want to put off our visit. It has been a long time and everything is in hand in Erebor to allow us to be here.”

Kili seized upon the cakes the moment they were at the table. “Ori has taken on an apprenticeship with Bifur,” he said, his mouth only partially full. “Balin has accepted that he will not take on as many duties and has begun seeking out like-minded betas that have not gone to Moria with the other dwarves of the Iron Hills. I took over a great deal when Fili was convalescing from the birth, but things are back to normal,” he assured.

“And all is well?” Thorin asked. 

Bilbo knew very well that even though Thorin was happy in the Shire with Bilbo, a piece of his heart would always yearn for Erebor and the treasures of its’ halls. Perhaps one day, they would return. One day, when Thorin could convince himself that he was no threat. “There were many learning experiences,” Fili promised, sipping his teacup with both hands surrounding the thing. “We are happy. Kili has taken to fatherhood with aplomb...”

“Hardly the same as you!” Kili interjected, leaning forward so that Bilbo and Thorin would listen to him first. “He is the perfect father. Patient and kind, loving, but stern,” he said, looking completely like a young boy in love despite his age. “She already knows how to read the basics thanks to Fili!”

“Kili,” Fili admonished quietly. 

“No, you deserve the praise. I fumbled, not sure what to do. In many ways, I still feel a child myself, but I’m learning, I am. Fili is a natural, though,” Kili praised, sitting back in his chair and rubbing a hand over Fili’s arm as he leaned in for a light kiss that somehow turned a great deal more possessive.

Well, then. Bilbo didn’t kiss Thorin like that in public for a reason, chief among them being that it was greatly uncomfortable.

Kili eased away, finally, and Fili (now flush with exertion) looked to Thorin and Bilbo. “We came to hear your stories, though,” he said. “Tell us of life in the Shire.”

Bilbo had many stories that he wished to tell, but he deferred to Thorin as he was the boys’ uncle. Thorin spoke of the jobs of the last few years. He told them of opening the forge, which had slowly become a place for people to purchase and barter for any small item they might need. “Hardly the weapons I expected to be making,” added Thorin. He talked of Frodo coming into the household in hushed tones to ensure Frodo did not overhear. He talked of gardening with Bilbo and when he spoke of the simple pleasures, he seemed more relaxed and happy than Bilbo could recall.

For Bilbo’s part, he had little to add. His and Thorin’s lives were inextricably linked together. “We’re quite the gossip of the town,” he did admit. “An old married hobbit vowed to a dwarf without a wedding in sight.”

“We never needed one,” Thorin replied gruffly. “The only people who mattered were here.” That had taken place four years back, which meant that Fili had been carrying Dis at the time and had never said a word.

Sneaky little imp. 

“Bilbo?” Frodo whispered. 

Bilbo glanced over his shoulder, seeing Frodo standing in the setting sun’s light. It had grown late without any of them realizing and would soon be time to bring out stronger drinks. “What is it, lad?”

“Dis is asleep,” he said, an apologetic look on his face.

“I’ll put her to bed,” Fili promised, squeezing Kili’s shoulder. “Bilbo, might I beg your hospital...”

“There is always a room set up for guests, doubly so for friends,” Bilbo interrupted. “Go.” 

Fili brushed a kiss to the top of Kili’s head as he rose from the table to put Dis to bed, led on by Frodo. Thorin had a look on his face that seemed to be pride and fondness, tinged with sadness, and Bilbo understood that it was difficult to be so far removed from the lives of his kin. Bilbo didn’t know if he would have the strength to give up something so precious to him as Thorin had. 

“Life goes on,” Kili said, as Bilbo brought out the drinks. “In happy ways and in other ways, too, but it continues and I am ever grateful for what it has brought us.”

They were lucky, all of them. Lucky and loved and in truth, what could be better than that?

Fili returned to them soon after, murmuring that Dis and Frodo had both gone to bed. The setting sun had given way to the moon in the sky and stars shone through the window as they talked into the night, only abating when each and every one of them began to lilt over with exhaustion. They saw the boys to their room before Thorin took Bilbo to bed. 

Tonight, their lazy bed-kisses were a touch more frantic and Bilbo had no reason to be surprised. Seeing Fili and Kili was always a reminder of the life he had lived before the Shire and while Bilbo did his best to provide all that he could, it was sometimes lacking.

“Thorin,” Bilbo exhaled softly, as Thorin brushed his fingers over the greying curls in Bilbo’s hair. “Are you happy? Honestly, now.”

Thorin’s hand paused for a moment, but quickly returned to its’ original task. “I am calm of mind and full of heart,” he murmured. “Surrounded by family and purpose. I know there is no stone in my hand, but there is a King under the Mountain and he reigns with a just hand and a care for his people. I am not happy, Bilbo. I am perfectly content beyond all potential for it. I am home,” he said.

“Home,” Bilbo echoed sleepily. “I think that’s the first time you’ve said that out loud.”

“Then I have been remiss because it is my home and a better kingdom than I ever deserved.”

Bilbo smiled as he curled into the waiting warmth of Thorin’s body, aware that he himself was not merely happy, per his own question.

No, he was happier than he had ever been in his life.

“Goodnight, Thorin.”

There was no response but a soft snore and Bilbo chuckled to himself as he closed his eyes fully and gave himself over to sleep and the waiting dreams that, while they tried, could hardly contend with the perfectly simple and yet honestly perfect life they had built for themselves.


End file.
